


Eight Days a Week

by SofiaBane



Series: Eight Days a Week [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Begrudging Hurt/Comfort, Crack Treated Seriously, Desperation, Diapers, Good Harry, Humiliation, Kidnapping, Light Bondage, Like extremely begrudging, M/M, Not angsty or melodramatic just chill, Omorashi, Sane Voldemort, Slow Burn, Spanking, Watersports, Wetting, nappies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 11:17:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7799647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SofiaBane/pseuds/SofiaBane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Voldemort needs Harry for a week's worth of blood magic. Harry needs a piss. Neither of them knew Harry would be getting off on being desperate and humiliated -- but anything to pass the time, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eight Days a Week

**Author's Note:**

> A longtime labor of lust, written to indulge every one of the gross things I like, lol. Extensive scenes of watersports/wetting/omorashi/diapers throughout, alongside bondage and humiliation and spanking. Reluctant yet pragmatic hurt/comfort. The slash itself is a long, slow burn.
> 
> Details in this fic diverge from canon around/after HBP. Un-beta'ed, un-britpicked; pre-emptive apologies for both. Thanks for reading.

 

"Son of a bitch." Harry had been very abruptly awoken by a sharp jab between his shoulder blades. He twisted to tell whoever was behind him to piss off.

"Potter, sit still," Voldemort muttered.

Holy shit. He meant to jump up and grab his wand from somewhere in his robes, but his legs didn't quite work. Oh, and he had evidently been perched in Voldemort's lap, so ended up tangled in the bottom of his robes. He fell, smacking his head on the coffee table, and ended up in a heap on the carpet.

"I cast Petrificus totalus earlier," Voldemort said. With a levitation spell, he replaced Harry in his lap, taking up his quill again. "It must not have entirely worn off yet. I could cast it again, if you’re unable to contain yourself." He dipped his quill into a bottle of ink, making a few more scratches along Harry's back.

This was strange and awful. He wasn’t bad at making snap judgments in the midst of battle, but this…. Merlin. He didn’t have any instincts here. Again he pushed himself off Voldemort’s lap, more successfully this time, fumbling with his sleeves. "Where's my wand, you _coward_?” he spat. Without it… well, he could potentially fist fight Voldemort. But really.

Harry only caught a split second of Voldemort’s unimpressed expression before he cast another immobilizing spell, making Harry fall flat on his face, smashing his nose and probably his glasses, _shite_. Above him, Voldemort said, "You don't need your wand. It would only cause problems."

Then another levitation spell, one that held Harry by the scruff to bring him to eye level with Voldemort (who looked with distaste at the bloody nose that the fall had given him, cleaning it up with a few spells). Now, aware of how trapped he was, the only thing Harry was able to do was fight the panic swelling in his chest. “This doesn’t have to be difficult,” Voldemort said deliberately. “It need not even be _painful_. I need your magic for a potion. And for as long as you and I are _here_ working on said potion, I’m not at Hogwarts murdering your Mudblood friends. Do you understand?” He eased the immobility spell off Harry’s face just enough to allow him to answer.

Bollocks. He would… go along with this, then. Only for the moment, while he formulated a plan. Still, he glared. “Yes,” he said, barely letting the word cross his lips. Voldemort re-situated them both on the sofa, Harry’s immobile body once more perched on his lap.

After a long and volatile silence, with the scratching of the quill across Harry’s back as the only sound filling the room, Voldemort finally said, “You must have questions. What do you recall?” Speaking in something of a lilt, he punctuated his words with a whimsical spin of his quill’s tip. Merlin, he was _mad_ , and possibly madder while pleased than while angry. Harry remained silent.

He felt Voldemort shift subtly with an unconcerned shrug. “It was quite a victory. Stunning spells from six directions, nobody could have withstood that," he crooned in mock-sympathy. “When I'm going to kill you, well, not immediately. And what I'm _doing_ , it's irrelevant to you, you only need to cooperate." He flipped a page of the book on the table in front of him. It was all runes, Harry was fairly sure (it certainly was something he’d seen Hermione working on, and had never bothered to ask), and that was presumably what Voldemort was copying onto his back now.

Sitting on Voldemort's lap wasn't comfortable at all – in more ways than one. As Harry regained feeling in the lower half of his body, he could feel Voldemort's bony knees pressing into the backs of his legs. Plus it was, you know, awkward as hell. With some mobility back, he could fight again. He could simply swing around and _choke_ Voldemort, that worked perfectly fine without magic. Or deck him, or slam his face against the coffee table before them. Or… feign docility now, as a strategy. He’d never been a strategist.

"I do recommend docility,” Voldemort said dryly. "You'll live longer that way, if that's your intent."

"Wanker,” Harry muttered.

“Pardon?” Voldemort asked in faux-politeness. He didn’t repeat himself. "Legilimency is easier at closer ranges, and really, Harry, your Occlumency is fairly useless. _Snape_ taught you?” Voldemort marveled as he reached deeper into his mind. “I expected better of you both, really.”

"Oh, piss o– _ahh-choo_!" He sneezed suddenly and explosively.

"Gesundheit." Voldemort leaned over (Harry shifted precariously, only his Quidditch-toned core keeping him upright) to retrieve a box of tissues from the side table. He dropped the box into Harry's lap. "Here."

He was barely able to pull out a tissue in time before he sneezed three times in succession. "Urgh," he mumbled, wiping his nose and slouching (Voldemort prodded him back upright). "What did you – _ahh-choo!_ – _do_ to me?"

"My punishments are more ambitious than giving people colds, actually." Voldemort sounded faintly offended that he would even ask.

As he worked, Harry looked more closely around the room they were in. There was a table full of potions ingredients sorted on one side, with a cauldron gently simmering on a portable burner on the other. The book of runes, of course, in front of him. A fireplace located behind him, its mantle lined with knick-knacks. To his left was a staircase, and in front of that was the front door. He considered just how close he was to it; Voldemort snorted.

"Stop that," Harry snapped.

“You are an open book. Lean over." He pushed Harry double so he could more easily write on his lower back. Harry sneezed a good four or five times.

There was a grandfather clock in the corner of the room, a Muggle kind that had to be wound manually. And the graveyard that he could see outside looked awfully (panic—inducingly) familiar. "Is this your father's house?" he asked curiously (interrupted by a sneeze).

"Yes," Voldemort said. "Do you recognize it?"

"Yeah." 

The next time he looked at the clock, a good half hour or so had gone by. Voldemort had turned him sideways and was now writing down his arm (and did not make him take off his trousers like Harry had feared he would). But still he showed no sign of stopping, which sucked, because Harry had to piss. 

How mundane, right? But he couldn't squirm or cross his legs, not when he was sitting on Voldemort's lap. "How much longer?" he asked. 

Voldemort leafed through his book. "An hour, perhaps an hour and a half." 

"Okay." He sneezed a couple of times violently. 

But it wasn't okay, not really. He was in need of a piss, he was sore from sitting for so long and so tensely, and he was bored. Defeated and captured by Lord Voldemort and only a few hours in, he was _bored_. How ungrateful. He sneezed a couple of times into his tissue. Sneezing, whatever the hell was up with that, didn't help matters. Whenever he sneezed he had to clamp down on his bladder, just in case. 

"Can I use the toilet?" he finally asked, after he had gotten so desperate that he would even think of asking. 

"You may when I'm done," Voldemort answered. "This is time-sensitive, and you’d ruin it by smearing the ink." 

"I wouldn't," Harry insisted (a note of desperation evident in his tone, he was sure). 

Voldemort made a noise of faux-commiseration. "I'll finish soon." Harry sneezed miserably. 

Yeah, "soon"? Was a bloody lie. It grew dark outside and the hands of the grandfather clock dragged across its face. He was in physical pain, and subsequently irritable, from having to piss so badly. He had carefully crossed one leg over the other, which helped a little but not enough. Especially when he sneezed. Fuck was that a challenge. 

And Voldemort was somehow amused by all of this, in his own way, and that made it all the worse. He had moved on to Harry's other arm, but his writing had gotten tiny, so Harry assumed he was nowhere near done. He grabbed another tissue, holding it to his face as he sneezed, and squeezed his legs together tightly. 

But it finally happened, kind of. He sneezed explosively and felt a trickle of piss get absorbed into his shorts. Bloody hell. Voldemort didn't say anything, just went on with his runes, so Harry assumed it hadn't, er, soaked through. "I've got to piss. _Now_ ," he said firmly, moving to get up. 

Voldemort grabbed his wrist, forcing him back down. "I'm nearly done." 

"No, I swear – _ahh-choo_!" And this time he was pissing himself in earnest, a stain spreading rapidly across the front of his jeans. 

Voldemort made a noise of disgust and grabbed his wand, casting a spell that made Harry feel sticky everywhere on which he had been written. "Go," Voldemort said, pushing Harry off his lap. "The toilet's at the top of the stairs." Harry sprinted, dribbling piss as he went. 

He threw open the door and didn't bother closing it again all the way as he wrestled his jeans and shorts down. He was bloody shaking, too badly to stand, so he sat and pissed hard into the bowl. 

It seemed to go on forever; he leaned back and closed his eyes, enjoying the sensation of finally being able to empty his bladder. He wished he had shut the door, though; the acoustics in the toilet were excellent and he was sure Voldemort could hear him perfectly from downstairs. Oh well. 

He finished, shook off awkwardly, and pulled his damp jeans back on because the alternative was going back downstairs with no trousers on. Or killing himself now to avoid the embarrassment, there was always that. 

As he twisted the taps on, he heard Voldemort climb the stairs. Sod it. Voldemort at least gave him the courtesy of knocking before pushing the door open the rest of the way. "Are you alright?" he asked, frowning. 

What sort of question was that? "Yes,” he muttered, still scrubbing his hands under the hot water. 

Voldemort took his shoulders to lead him out of the toilet, and glanced down at his wet jeans. "Oh, Harry," he said with a mixture of pity and amusement. 

"Fuck off," Harry said, "it was your fault." 

"Of course," he agreed mildly, drying him with a wave of his wand. "We really must finish though, come downstairs." 

Well, that had certainly humbled (humiliated) him. He reluctantly took a seat in Voldemort's lap and let him continue with his project. 

It took maybe another fifteen minutes – Harry was no longer watching the clock so obsessively. Voldemort finished just above Harry's knuckles with a flourish, pushing him off his lap. "Is that it?" Harry asked uncertainly. 

"Ah, no." Voldemort picked up a knife from the metal folding table and Harry resisted the strong impulse to fight. "I’ll cut here – " he drew a single finger down Harry's spine "– for blood. It shouldn't hurt; I keep my knives very sharp. Don't sneeze," Voldemort added wryly. 

But he stood as still as possible as Voldemort drew the knife down his back, pressing a beaker to the base of his spine to collect blood. He drew his wand out. "Would you like a scar?" 

What the hell. "I've got one already, thanks." His tone was snappish, but Voldemort only hummed in some amusement as he healed the cut. 

"Go shower," he said. "The ink will come off. And you’re not needed for the rest of the night. You'll be staying in the bedroom attached to the toilet." He turned his attention to his cauldron, and the beaker full of Harry's blood. Shuddering, he left for the shower. 

He washed the ink off (actually, most of it came off on its own, staining the water at his feet a dark blue). Then he just stood underneath the stream of hot water. This was the strangest bloody time for luxury, but… he hadn't had a proper shower since before the war. Not that he could fully relax in the spray – Voldemort was downstairs, after all. _Voldemort_ was downstairs, holy hell. Still, he had no plan or leverage for escaping this stupid situation. Perhaps he could stab Voldemort as he slept. There were a _lot_ of knives downstairs, anyway. 

But sleep also sounded brilliant, honestly. It was nearly midnight by now, he hadn't slept for the past few days, and one could only run on adrenaline for so long. He’d probably plan better after some rest, think straighter and fight harder if it came to it. His shirt and robe were already folded over the baseboard; and the bedroom’s one window was literally _radiant_ with wards. Tonight, just tonight, perhaps he should sleep instead. 

 

When he awoke the next morning, he found that he had been chained to the headboard with glowing golden links. Which stretched, he found upon trying them. Fine, then; he tugged them into the toilet and had a piss. Downstairs he could hear Voldemort working on something. After unsuccessful attempts at letting himself out from either the toilet or bedroom doors, he gathered up his chains, taking a seat on the bed (the chains thoughtfully retracting as he gave them slack). 

He had a tickle in his throat; he coughed to relieve it. And coughed, and coughed, and nearly gagged from coughing so hard. Goddammit. 

Stumbling back into the toilet, turned on the faucet, and drank cold water from his cupped hands. When his cough was ameliorated for a bit, he leaned up against the counter, gulping in deep breaths. 

The door opened, and Voldemort frowned at him. "Good morning." 

Harry cleared his throat tentatively. "Morning." 

Voldemort took his wrists, pushing the golden chains off. "Come downstairs." 

Downstairs smelled like a wonderful breakfast, and Harry's stomach twisted in hunger, in spite of himself. Voldemort arranged him on the sofa, conjuring a pitcher of water on the coffee table, then continued through a doorway on the far side of the room, returning in a moment with a plate of eggs, tomatoes, and bacon. ( _The Dark Lord made me breakfast_ , Harry thought hysterically. He must already be dead, because surely this wouldn’t happen in real life. But what a thing to hallucinate.) 

Voldemort turned him sideways on the sofa and took a seat behind him, arranging the open book of runes in front of them so he could see it over Harry's shoulder. "There's more?" Harry asked. 

"There's a week's worth." 

Well, damn. At least that could (partially) explain why Voldemort was keeping him alive and relatively comfortable. He stabbed a tomato, but before he could put it in his mouth, his lungs spasmed and he had another violent coughing fit. He dropped his fork onto the plate with a clatter, grabbing the pitcher and drinking glass in desperation. Voldemort stopped writing for a moment. 

He chugged the water and took a few deep breaths. "Sorry," he said when he could breathe again, and picked up his plate from the runes book. 

Voldemort resumed writing as Harry ate. "Have you ever gotten magical poisoning?" Voldemort asked. 

He wasn't even sure if he had heard that right. "Um. No?" he guessed. 

He could almost _hear_ Voldemort roll his eyes. "Magical poisoning," he repeated. "Overexposure. Wizards typically get it after their first battle. Stray magic in the air, you know." 

"Oh." He stopped to cough more. "But I've been exposed to plenty of magic." 

"Yes, you have. Turn the page." Harry did so. "But you must have reached your threshold yesterday." 

"So… what happens?" 

"What you're experiencing." He cast a spell to refill the pitcher. "Typically it gets treated by mediwizards after battle. You, of course, don't get that luxury. But it won't kill you." 

"Oh. Um, good." He poured another glass of water. 

This really wasn't so bad. Except for the parts where he couldn't breathe, and the parts where he was bored senseless. Oh, and the way his legs cramped and stung from sitting in the same position for too long. But, at least for Voldemort, this was positively humane. 

"I'm going to need your chest as well today," Voldemort said, breaking the silence. 

"What? Oh." He twisted to look at Voldemort. "Um, where do you want me?" Voldemort pulled him onto his lap without decorum. 

So Harry had to straddle Voldemort's legs and keep his head tilted upwards as Voldemort wrote runes across his collarbone. How awkward. Especially so when he had to push himself backwards and turn to the side to cough. 

During his last coughing fit Voldemort poured him a glass of water himself. "I'll look into how magical poisoning is treated," he offered, "but it’s presumably just treating each day's symptoms. I may have the potions ingredients on hand." 

"Oh." Harry sipped his water. Should he say thanks for that? Uncertain and a little resentful, he fell silent again. 

He wouldn’t let all the water that he’d been drinking do him in. Not on Voldemort's lap, not _again_. But he had been sitting there for hours, and, well. 

His head was still tilted back, even though Voldemort was now writing on his pectorals, because the alternative was looking him right in the face (hilarious, but he was certain he’d lose that staring contest). So he stared at the ceiling intently, thinking about how much he did _not_ need to piss, as Voldemort wrote methodically down his abdomen. 

But their position was rather… intimate, and although he tried not to squirm, sometimes he just couldn't help it. "If you're going to piss on yourself again, at least say so first," Voldemort requested dryly. 

Okay, so his actions were rather blatant. "I don’t plan to," he answered evenly (wishing he could just hold onto his cock to help. Or actually use the toilet, that'd be nice too). 

Voldemort had written all the way down his abdomen and was now at the waistband of his jeans, which kind of tickled and kind of hurt. "I'll be done within a few hours." 

This was the opposite of comforting. "Couldn’t you do the thing you did yesterday? That sticky spell?” (He was already condemned to begging and bargaining, yes, sod it all.) 

"It compromises the magic," Voldemort said. "It required re-calculating the ratios in the potion last night to compensate, and it's _not_ something I care to do every day." 

Hell with his bloody potion (which he should be sabotaging _anyway_ , he just didn’t know how). With some prodding, Harry turned sideways on Voldemort's lap so he could write down his arm – a position that, at least, wasn’t so intimate, and also not such a strain on his bladder. He stared out of the front window sulkily. 

Voldemort had gotten down to his elbow when he began to worry for serious. Two days in a row, what the hell was wrong with him. But god, it was hardly his fault, Voldemort _trapped_ him here for hours at a time. Not so humane after all. Sadistic, in fact, the wanker. 

Stupidly, he could feel tears welling in his eyes, in awful frustration and humiliation. Sitting there teary-eyed would make him feel like a stupid prat, but wiping them away would draw Voldemort's attention. He simply sat and basked in his self-loathing for awhile, but then his nose started running and he sniffled. 

Voldemort looked up at his face and snorted. "Oh Merlin, _what_.” 

What a stupid bloody question, he knew perfectly well what was wrong. He shook his head, wiping the tears and snot off his face. 

"Are you really going to wet yourself?" 

" _Yes_ ," Harry hissed. 

Voldemort drew his wand, vanished the remaining water from the pitcher, and handed it over. "Go, then." 

His stomach twisted as he took the glass pitcher. "Really?" he asked uncertainly, one hand straying to his fly already. 

"Really." Voldemort resumed writing. 

He was struck with a really horrible thought. "And… you won't make me drink it again afterward?"

Voldemort made a noise of revulsion in the back of his throat. "No." 

"Right." His voice cracked. He undid his fly. He had never pissed at this angle before, but that he was desperate enough to do so…. Spreading his knees, he held the pitcher between them, pulled his cock out from over the waistband of his shorts (he could feel Voldemort watching this, but couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment), and pissed. 

He could have cried in relief. His urine coursed down the glass, collecting noisily in the bottom, and he felt his bladder shrink. Voldemort had returned to his runes, still half-watching. The pitcher grew heavy. 

It felt like it went on for several minutes, for which he didn't breathe. Then he slowed to a trickle, ridiculously loudly in the pitcher, then stopped. Harry shook off and breathed an involuntary sigh of relief. 

Voldemort, unmoved, drew his wand. "Finished?" 

"Er, yes." Voldemort vanished the pitcher and Harry shoved his cock back into his pants. 

When Voldemort finished with his runes within the hour, Harry stood so that he could carve him up. "Down your arms, actually," Voldemort said, taking one of Harry's wrists and picking up his knife. He sliced from elbow to wrist one arm at a time, collecting blood and healing him quickly. "You may go," he said, turning to his cauldron.

Finally. Harry stretched and went to go shower. 

But he got a… peculiar feeling as the hot water hit his skin and streamed down his legs. After his piss this afternoon, all he had really wanted to do was wank. And, in hindsight, he had also wanted to after his… accident yesterday. It was the feeling of release, he thought, that tied the two together in his mind. But still, how perverse. He hoped desperately that Voldemort hadn't tapped his mind with Legilimency, and slid a hand between his legs. 

 

The next morning, or maybe the same night for all Harry knew, he woke up far too early. It was pitch-black in his room, and… something wasn't right. " _Tempus_ ," he muttered as he groped stupidly for his wand. No wand anywhere, of course, but 2:33 am still flashed in front of his eyes. "Cheers," he muttered, and it vanished. 

Yes, he felt distinctly wrong somehow. He held his breath to listen, but the house was quiet. And there was nothing out of place in his room, as far as he could see. He pushed off the smothering covers, yanked on the chains that held his wrists to loosen them, and made his way to the toilet. And, unexpectedly, he threw up. 

Well, at least he figured that out in front of a toilet and not in bed. He dropped to his knees, heaving hard. It was a bit sad, actually. Voldemort had cooked last night, which was really very nice of him, and now it had all gone to waste. He would have laughed at his own misplaced priorities if he weren't busy retching. 

Where _was_ Voldemort, in fact? If he was anywhere in the house, Harry was certain he would be able to hear this. (And if he wasn’t in the house, well, that was useful information itself.) He finished and slumped backwards with a groan. Maybe he should try to find him. If either door were unlocked, and if the chains would extend that far. Anyway, clambering to his feet, he tried the doorknob: it was locked, and he'd feel like an arse calling for help. He tried casting Alohomora wandlessly, which might have worked, but for an anti-magic ward that zapped him hard enough to make him stumble backward a bit. And then another surge of nausea overcame him and he fell to his knees in front of the toilet again. 

In between bouts of throwing up, he lay, defeated, on the rug, quietly praying for death. And that was how Voldemort found him after that entire awful night. 

He had entered the bedroom first, come to the toilet, and faltered. "Harry?" Harry tilted his head slightly toward the doorway in acknowledgement – opening his eyes or, certainly, speaking, would just prompt more vomiting. 

This wasn't enough for Voldemort. "What is it today?" he asked. 

Harry sat up, swaying a little. "I've been – " He didn't finish; he lunged for the toilet and threw up again spectacularly. 

"Oh." Voldemort was unmoved. "Well, in that case you’ll have to be silenced, because Bellatrix will be arriving soon and she shouldn’t know that you're here." He took Harry's wrists, pushing the chains off casually. "I'll be out for an hour or two." 

Bloody hell, he was supposed to _do_ something. He took a few shallow, panting breaths. "What about your runes?" (This wasn’t actually what he wanted to ask, but.) 

"Later. There's comparatively few today, so it won't be long." 

He wasn't sure how he was going to manage sitting still as Voldemort worked on his thing, in the condition he was in. He nodded defeatedly. 

There was a sharp knock on the front door, and Voldemort cast the Silencing charm on Harry before he left. Then Harry heard Bellatrix's voice downstairs, the front door swinging shut, and silence. And the next time he threw up, a few minutes later, there was no heaving sound to accompany it. Bizarre. 

He really had nothing left to throw up, unsurprisingly, except bitter stomach acid. So he kept drinking water so that at least he'd have _that_ in his stomach for the next time he vomited. Which was pathetic and disgusting, really. He had intended, with Voldemort out, to attempt to force his way out of the house, but in reality he could muster little energy but to press his hot face against the cool tile floor.

 

Voldemort was right, he probably wasn’t gone long at all – perhaps an hour, if the Silencing charm had half-worn off, Harry estimated. He kept his face on the ground and listened as Voldemort climbed the stairs. 

He opened the toilet door and laughed softly when he saw Harry lying there (though Harry failed to see the humor). " _Finite_. Sit up." He was holding his stupid runes book and a bottle of ink. "It will be more convenient to work in here today." 

Cheers, Voldemort. Harry sat up uncertainly, pressing a hand to his mouth just in case. Setting down the book and ink bottle on the counter, Voldemort extracted something from his robes. A tiny green bottle, which he handed to Harry. "An anti-emetic," he said as he sat down behind Harry with his supplies. "From the apothecary. It works within an hour, and you'll sleep the rest of the day." 

Harry uncorked the vial. It smelled like licorice, and turned his stomach, but he refused to throw up and drank it. (In hindsight, there was no reason to _not_ assume it was a poison, but at that moment he might’ve taken it anyway, to end this awful day.) Voldemort rested a hand on Harry's back in a most un-Voldemort-like way before flipping open his book. 

"Where were you last night?" Harry asked once Voldemort had gotten a few lines down. 

"Mm? Here," Voldemort answered absently. "Why?" 

"Because I've been up all night. And I thought you'd have heard me." His voice sounded rough, and consequently upset. 

Voldemort hummed. "And you'd have been able to avoid a lot of misery? There are several barriers around the house, and some of them are soundproofed. I could fix them later." 

"I don't care, I only wanted to know." An unexpected wave of nausea hit and he leaned forward to vomit. Voldemort stopped, conjuring him a pitcher of water for afterward. Luckily, Harry thought, his vomit wasn't the dark green of the potion, which meant it had been metabolized. Which meant this would be over soon. 

By the time Voldemort had gotten to the bottom of his back, Harry's head had begun to drop onto his chest, and he just wanted to sleep. But then Voldemort set down his quill and picked up a knife from the counter. "Here," he said, brushing a finger along the back of Harry's neck, then marking it with a quick x with his knife (which would have been really unsettling, actually, if Harry were more awake). He pressed a glass to the cut, then healed Harry. "Right," he said, standing and corking his bottle. "Shower before you sleep, otherwise you'll ruin the bedclothes." 

Well, yes. Voldemort gathered up everything and left him alone, and he dragged himself into the shower. 

As he slumped against the shower wall, letting the water run down his back, the ink came off in rivulets down his legs. Once the water ran clear, he toweled himself dry and pulled on his shorts to go crawl into his wonderful, inviting bed.

 

He awoke again when it was dark, but this time he had enough sense to switch on the lamp instead of groping for his wand. Which was good, because Voldemort had left a tray on his bedside table. Hard-boiled eggs, broth, and sliced bread, all kept hot with a warming charm. A brief note, written in magic, shimmered on the surface of the charm. _Or you're free to the kitchen._  

No, this seemed just about perfect. The warming charm popped against his hand as he picked up the bowl of soup and sipped it appreciatively. (Again, it could be poisoned, but that would be the stupidest and least Voldemort-like way to kill him.) When he had very nearly finished everything, he carried the tray downstairs into the kitchen. 

Voldemort was working in the living room; he glanced up as Harry passed him cautiously. Which was when he realized that he was wearing nothing but his shorts. Bugger. He tried acting nonchalant. "Um, thank you." 

"Mm." Voldemort was busy jotting down what looked like calculations, from what Harry could see of them. The grandfather clock said it was half past eleven, and he felt pretty confident he could sleep all night, or forever. After doing the dishes, he awkwardly wished Voldemort goodnight (he got a murmur in return), and climbed the staircase again. 

He really should be devoting himself to _doing_ something around here, he thought idly. Like finding a way out. If he couldn’t take Voldemort on from the position he was in, he could at least escape. Not that the past few days had been… bad (he’d always assumed being captured by Voldemort would involve much more torture), but it was the principle of the matter. Anyway, whatever he was implicitly helping Voldemort with couldn't be good; no potion that called for this much blood was ever good. 

He glanced downstairs; Voldemort was engrossed in his potion. Bypassing his own bedroom, he quietly climbed the next staircase to the second floor. Then the next one, which brought him to the attic. 

He hadn't bothered looking at his own room, since Voldemort would have warded that the heaviest, plus that entire floor. But it appeared as though nobody had been in the attic in the past century. He was going to leave footprints in the heavy dust, he realized. Oh well. 

He stepped lightly through the disintegrating boxes stacked around him, to a large window on the far side of the room. Through it he could see the moon. It was nearly full, and he wondered if Remus was okay – then decided it was a dangerous question to ask. He tried the latches holding the window closed; they wouldn't move an inch. Of course. But peering at them in the moonlight, it looked like they had just been painted over. He’d just need something sharp to pry them open with, then. 

As it turned out, Voldemort's… grandmother? must have been the sentimental type who kept letters, because that's what most of the boxes were filled with. And, in the fifth one he looked, there was a sharp silver letter opener. Which was about as perfect as he could hope for. Sitting on the window ledge, he patiently chipped away at the paint. 

It got darker outside, clouds obscured the moon, and then rain beat at the windows. Voldemort, Harry presumed, was still downstairs working on his potion, because he hadn't heard anything for as long as he had been up here. He finished the latch on one side, which now slid open and closed with a little effort, and started on the other side. 

And as he sat there and worked, he thought more about how nice it would be to _not_ be here. To go to St. Mungo's and let them sort out this awful magical poisoning, then rejoin his friends and their battle. To keep them safe. 

Unless by keeping Voldemort here, being productive and occupied, he _was_ keeping them safe. 

He considered this as he chipped away the bits of paint. 

He finished the other latch too, but when he tried to push the window open it still wouldn't move. Dammit. He ran his finger along the window frame. Bugger, the entire thing had been painted over. What was wrong with these people. But as he raised the letter opener to the frame, there was a sharp pain in his scar and the stab of Legilimency. _Fuck_. 

Voldemort had already climbed the first flight of stairs, he could hear, so there was no escaping back to his room. Harry briefly considered using the letter opener as a makeshift wand, but figured it would only compound the problem. He let it fall to the dusty ground just as Voldemort opened the door. 

In the past few days he had almost forgotten what Voldemort looked like angry, and as Voldemort entered Harry stepped backward, stumbling up against the windowsill and throwing his hand back to catch himself. The magic in the warded window throbbed as he touched it. He'd have never gotten out anyway. 

Voldemort approached him, kicking the letter opener into a dark corner with a cursory glance. "It's warded," he said in a measured tone. "Every crevice of this house is warded. Naturally.” He pushed Harry out of the way. "And even if it weren't warded, you’d be in no condition to run after a forty-foot drop. Kneel." He pointed to a spot on the ground, and Harry hesitantly obeyed. Voldemort took a seat on the window ledge, grabbing Harry's arms, and pulled him over his legs. Bloody hell, he was going to get a _spanking_? 

Yes, he was. Voldemort roughly pulled his pants down, and his exposed cock was pressed against Voldemort's thigh. He dropped his head, looking hard at the floor. "I thought Crucio would be a bit much," Voldemort explained. "Although we could negotiate if you’d like." Harry shook his head no, unable to speak. _Smack_. Voldemort’s hand came down hard on Harry's arse. "Keep count." 

"One," Harry muttered. 

"Of course I don't expect that you _want_ to be here, that's absurd." Another two smacks, Harry counted them in a low tone. "But my _god_ , Harry – " _smack_ " – if I haven't made every concession so that at least you were content." ( _Five, six, seven_.) "So that you're more willing to cooperate, and we could get through this week painlessly, without such tedious conflicts as this." He had gotten up to fourteen with that, losing the deliberate pace of the spanking in his anger. "I could have left you _miserable_ and _humiliated_ – " a sharp smack emphasized each " – but I have been patient to a bloody _fault_ – “ _smack_ “ – and I only wish you would cooperate, you've got no reason not to. If you comply with just that much, I won't kill you," he said darkly. "How many is that?" 

"Twenty-two," Harry answered softly. 

Voldemort continued spanking him in silence, until he reached thirty, then he pushed him off his knees to stand. He let Harry pull his shorts back up, then motioned him downstairs. "Just go to bed. I can’t look after you tonight." 

Harry silently entered his bedroom and heard Voldemort lock the door before continuing downstairs. It could have been Crucio, he considered, but wasn't all that comforted that it hadn't been. 

 

The next morning he woke up to a torrential downpour outside and complete silence in the house. Which was unnerving, because normally he could hear the potions simmering below, at least. He entertained the possibility that Voldemort had simply packed up and left, leaving Harry trapped in this house forever. That'd be unfortunate, although he was still feeling properly chastised from last night so maybe that was part of his punishment. He winced as he stood, feeling the ache in his arse. Yes, quite chastised. He walked delicately into the toilet and had a piss. 

So what would today's symptom be? He washed his hands and, once he crossed the doorway back to his bedroom, swooned and collapsed to the carpet. The room, which had been stationary a minute ago, now spun wildly whenever he focused his gaze on anything. He groaned, crawling back to bed, to collapse on the covers and squeeze his eyes shut. 

He heard the front door close and Voldemort doing something in the living room. He waited for him to come upstairs and retrieve him, guilt and anxiety gnawing at his stomach a bit, but… he didn't. Was he hoping Harry would approach him of his own volition? He wasn't feeling _that_ guilty. 

The spinning of the room had slowed to a gentle rocking of his bed beneath him, but he didn't dare open his eyes again. 

After what felt like forever, Voldemort climbed the stairs, knocking before he entered. He said nothing, and Harry didn't especially want to look at him or anything, and he couldn't explain himself really. He inclined his head toward Voldemort slightly, concentrating on keeping the room at a slow whirl. And then Voldemort pulled down his shorts, letting them slide down his legs to the floor, and all bets were off. Harry slapped his hands over his bits, but when he sat up quickly he nearly passed out from the rush. "What are you _doing_?"

Voldemort dropped a bag on the floor by his feet. "This will be a long day." Before he could push Harry back down on the bed, he collapsed on his own, dizziness rendering him unable to hold himself up any longer. Voldemort and the ceiling shifted in and out of focus; he thought he might throw up again. To compound matters, Voldemort pushed his hands out of the way, grabbed his ankles, and wrenched his legs into the air. He groaned as the motion traveled up his body like a wave, crashing at his skull. 

Voldemort did… something, Harry couldn't tell what since he was staring as his own knees, and then he was dropped back onto the bed (his vision pulsating as he hit the mattress and bounced a few times softly). Underneath his arse was a soft cotton cloth. Harry reached for it, but Voldemort pushed his hand away and pulled the nappy up, pinning it on either side. 

"No," Harry said flatly. 

"Today will be a long day," Voldemort repeated. "This is a late start and there’s an expansive text to cover. It’s simpler that you should use a nappy than anything else." He tugged on a pair of clear plastic pants over the nappy. 

Fuck.  He had planned on being so good today but Voldemort was making it difficult. He reached to push all of it off. "I won't… have an accident today." The words rung in his ears awkwardly. 

Voldemort snorted. "Then don't. Come downstairs." He turned to leave. 

Didn't he realize that Harry's sense of balance was shot all to hell? He gingerly sat up, attempting to follow. And made it four steps before he collapsed in a frustrated heap in the bedroom’s threshold. 

Voldemort looked back at him impatiently. "I'm dizzy," Harry tried to explain as he sorted out his limbs. Voldemort, looking annoyed, simply scooped him up with a spell and levitated him downstairs. 

He dropped Harry on his back onto the sofa. "Could you sit up?" 

"Not for long," Harry answered, squeezing his eyes shut. 

"Mm." Voldemort pushed his legs up, so they were bent at the knees, and sat beside them. He unscrewed his ink bottle, to begin writing carefully down Harry's shins. 

Was he angry? He certainly was cooler now than he had been in the past three days, but he had been, you know, acting especially kind then so maybe his generosity was simply exhausted. Harry really should say something. 

He cleared his throat and bit the bullet. "I'm sorry about last night." 

"Are you." Voldemort sounded uninterested. Wanker. 

"Yes." He made the sacrifice of opening his eyes to look at Voldemort (for as long as his gaze would focus, anyway). Voldemort met his gaze briefly over his knees, then dropped his head again to continue writing. 

After a long pause he said, "It's fine." 

As Voldemort wrote, Harry lay still and considered his nappy. He really hadn't been that obnoxious with pissing, had he? The first day, maybe, wetting Voldemort's lap. But probably not the second day and certainly not yesterday, when he was throwing up all the liquids he drank before he had a chance to wee them out. It wasn't fair at all. Maybe it was another punishment (he was going to think everything was a punishment for the next few days). But honestly, he got spanked like a child last night and now he was back in nappies. So either he was being infantilized or Voldemort had a serious problem of violating privacy and personal space. 

Voldemort snorted. "It's neither," he said in response to Harry's thoughts. 

Yeah, some definite issues with personal space. "Are you always using Legilimency on me?" Harry asked irritatedly.

"No, your mind is mundane. And you really know nothing worth knowing.” He finished the line ending at Harry's ankle bone and started again on the other knee, flipping the page of his runes book. "I didn't realize that the vertigo was so severe, though." 

Served him right for prying in his head. "Yeah, well." 

"And if you'd like to take the nappy as penance, you certainly may," Voldemort continued. "But I only couldn’t have another day of dealing with your piss." 

Fine. Harry let that fall into silence. 

Anyway. The nappy. It was very thick, even slightly pushing his thighs apart, maybe seven or eight layers. This was more fabric than was usually between Voldemort and his cock, so he didn't feel as bashful about it as he could have (the fact that he was in a nappy notwithstanding). And it was warm, soft, and clean – for the time being. But he didn't feel the slightest need to piss, and he wasn't drinking much, so he would be fine, right? He listened to the pendulum in the grandfather clock swing back and forth as Voldemort wrote down his legs. 

Wait. "Did you shave my legs?" Harry asked incredulously, moving to run his hand down one of them. 

Voldemort slapped his wrist and he withdrew it. "Of course not," he said. "A depilatory spell. On your abdomen and arms too. You should have noticed before now." 

He probably should have, but he’d been, you know, rather preoccupied these past few days. Anyway, he felt a little violated now that he knew. "It will grow back," Voldemort reassured him (and Harry could _hear_ him roll his eyes as he said it). 

When he finished both of Harry's shins, he pushed his legs apart to sit between his knees to more easily reach his thighs – and later, Harry assumed, arms and torso. Anyway, he was nearly falling asleep from just lying there with his eyes closed. Not that there would be much difference anyway. "Could I have a pillow?" he asked. Voldemort paused and dropped one onto his torso. "Thanks." He tucked it behind his head as he dropped off to sleep. 

Horrifyingly enough, the next time he awoke it was with a start, since he was leaking tiny spurts of piss into the nappy. He forcibly stopped himself, and his bladder throbbed. 

Voldemort made a discontented noise and licked his index finger, wiping off the slash of ink that smeared across Harry's torso when he jerked. He must've been asleep for awhile, because by this time Voldemort had covered half his chest, and his writing was _tiny_. He had moved farther up between Harry's legs, one knee pressed very gently against the nappy, in fact. But he said nothing, only kept writing. Harry lay very still for him. 

The nappy was damp now and very warm, and by this time he did have to piss – not critically, but enough. Except, you know, Voldemort was hovering right over him, and giving up and pissing on himself (worse than he just had) would be tantamount to admitting defeat. On the other hand, it would be kind of… nice? to simply let go and not sit in increasing agony as he had done before. Just let his bladder drain, contained by the warm, wet nappy, and – 

Fuck. What was wrong with him? He refused to get hard and tried thinking of something else. When that didn't work, he looked down his chest at the runes Voldemort had written; the resulting vertigo, from looking down his own body, overwhelmed any unsavory thoughts for awhile. He looked up at the ceiling as the rest of the room twisted and spun in his vision. Anyway. "What time is it?" The grandfather clock was on the far side of the sofa, but the thought of focusing on its tiny numbers made him pre-emptively ill. 

"Just after two." 

So he had slept for awhile then. Well, good, because this was damn dull (except for the way the sofa swung gently underneath him like a hammock. That was neat, if it didn't make him sick). "So, what does this potion do?" he asked casually.

Voldemort paused for just a moment. "Didn't we agree that it doesn't matter to you what it's for?" 

"I didn't agree to anything," Harry said. "Is it another immortality thing?" 

Voldemort made an amused noise in the back of his throat. "It is, actually.” 

Harry considered this. That was nearly okay, then, nothing he felt compelled to sabotage immediately. It wasn't hurting anyone, at least not yet (except himself and all the damn bloodletting, but, well). 

His urge to piss grew stronger as the minutes wore on. And the already-damp feeling of his nappy made it worse. He hadn't wet the bed in _years_. Well, at least a year, anyway. There had been the summer after Sirius's death, when he was understandably distraught (not so understandably to his relatives when they found him in a wet bed, but he had laundered the sheets and they had avoided him that summer, anyway). And once the summer of Cedric's death, same reason. But before _those_ unfortunate moments, all the prior ones had been when he was young and merely deprived of a toilet for too long. He tightened his pelvic muscles, wondering when Voldemort would be finished. 

The answer to that, of course, was "not soon enough." It was never soon enough. It was around four-thirty when Voldemort finished his abdomen, writing a tiny string of runes encircling his navel. But before Harry could ask if they were done, he began copying another page onto his shoulder. The dizziness was abating at least, for which he was grateful, and the room stayed mostly stationary when he looked around. He squirmed slightly. At least Voldemort was done writing on his lower stomach; _that_ had been an interesting and awful sensation. 

But finally, after enough squirming, Voldemort sighed. "Harry, you don't need my permission," he said, in a gentler tone than Harry would have expected. "Just go if you’ve got to." 

The prospect was tempting, but how mortifying to admit it. "I'm fine." 

"Are you?" Voldemort glanced up. "You’re terribly impatient. And incapable of sitting still." 

"Sorry." 

Voldemort shrugged. "Say when you need to be changed." He returned to his runes. 

Damn. Soon enough, he was starting to reach the really painful, panicked stages of desperation.  Well, sod it, it's not like any of his dignity remained intact anyway. "Um," he said awkwardly. Voldemort gave him a sidelong glance. "I'm going to – " He made a vague motion with his free hand. 

"Going to what?" 

Sadistic arsehole. "I'm going to piss," Harry said deliberately, squeezing his eyes shut. 

And so he did. He pushed, and a hard steam of urine hit the cotton of his nappy and ran down to his arse. He shuddered at the wave of release as he pissed out the entire day's worth of urine. He reached to adjust his cock, so he wasn't just soaking the back of the nappy, but Voldemort grabbed his wrist. "You'll ruin the ink," he said, replacing Harry's hand at his side. "It won't leak."

"I, um. Alright." The cloth from his groin to his arse, all of it, was saturated, and consequently he could hear his piss as it hit the overtaxed fabric. A warm puddle grew underneath him. 

"There’s more than enough magic to keep a nappy from leaking." 

Fine, he would test the extent of his bloody magic nappy then. He pushed out another intense stream of piss. 

It felt more and more like an orgasm every time he did it. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter as his breath hitched. He didn't want to get hard, he just wanted to finish his piss. Really. 

He pissed for nearly a minute more, as it slowed to a dribble and then stopped. Voldemort slid a hand beneath him. "Actually," he said, "you’ll need to wait until this is finished. The cushions will get ruined otherwise." 

Fine. He settled into his hot, soaked nappy, feelings of relief winning out even over self-consciousness. 

As always, time went by a lot faster after he had pissed than it did before. Voldemort started on his other arm as night was settling. His dizziness had dissipated almost entirely, and he watched the clock languidly as Voldemort finished with his runes. Finally, Voldemort closed his book and picked up his knife (which Harry was becoming positively Pavlovian about, it meant he was free afterward). "Right down your middle," he said, drawing his finger from Harry's collarbone to his navel. He stepped out from between Harry's knees. "Can you stand?" 

"Yeah." He pulled his legs together, inadvertently wringing piss from his nappy. It squished kind of unpleasantly. "Oh, except – " 

"You won't leak," Voldemort said. "Slosh, perhaps." 

 _God_. He chose to just commit to it and stood; piss ran down his arse and collected in the groin of the rubber pants. Which were swollen and distended from his nappy, actually, holding their own pool of urine that the cotton hadn't been able to contain. How horrifying. 

Voldemort tilted Harry's chin upward and drew the knife down quickly, cutting straight through his runes. He took a glass vial from the table behind him and pressed it to the bottom of the cut, letting him bleed into it until it was about half-full. After capping the vial and healing the incision, he pushed Harry in the direction of the stairs. "Let's clean you up.” 

Climbing the stairs was horrifying, too; the nappy sloshing with each step. Voldemort just motioned for him to get in the tub as he was. And when he pulled the rubber pants down, a torrent of lukewarm piss ran down Harry's legs, making him shudder. Voldemort reached for the safety pins holding the nappy together on either sides, but Harry stepped out of his reach. "I'll do it." 

Voldemort raised his eyebrows (or where his eyebrows would be, anyway). "Will you?" He turned to rinse his hands. "Spread everything on the rim, then, to dry. And dinner will be in an hour." He left. 

Yeah, he would gladly take his time, after a tense and stupid and filthy day. When he unfastened the pins, the soaked nappy slid down his legs, landing with a thud. Much of the ink on his thighs and shins had already been washed off by his piss, he noted with some disgusted amusement. He twisted on the taps, pushed the rubber pants and nappy under the water, and had a wonderful wank as they soaked. 

He didn't feel bad about it either, dammit. Dirty, maybe, but not bad. When he came, he made a strangled noise (Voldemort was _right_ downstairs, after all), nearly forced to his knees by its intensity. After catching his breath, he flipped on the showerhead to rinse the come off his cock and where it had splattered all the way up his torso. 

Except, horrifyingly, the ink there wouldn't come off. He went through three different soaps, one of those puffy shower scrubbing things, and finally his fingernails. But no, that ink was stained for good. Bugger. 

Returning to his bedroom, he decided it would be novel to be fully dressed in front of Voldemort, as the past few days had gone. So he put on his neglected robe – which really felt strangely restrictive now – before returning downstairs. 

God, he was _ravenous_ , he realized when he smelled dinner cooking. Voldemort looked up and beckoned Harry in. Pasta was boiling on one burner and a red sauce was simmering on the other. Voldemort set down his knife to pour Harry a glass of wine. "Finish that,” he said, gesturing to a salad in progress. Bemused but cooperative, he did so. His only concession was drinking the glass of wine a little faster than was necessary, to deal with, you know, a scene of domestic tranquility with Lord Voldemort. (Could he stab him with the chef’s knife with which he was currently slicing cucumber? Was _now_ the time to rebel, truly – over a salad? He drank harder.) 

It was all very romantic, really, as they sat down together cautiously. While serving themselves, Voldemort topped off both of their glasses and held his up with a queer half-smile. "Cheers." Bewildered but not impolite, Harry tapped it with his own and drank deeply. 

Yeah, so the only thing that was missing was candlelight. The last time they had had dinner together, two nights ago, Voldemort had been pacing between his potion and dinner but mostly the potion (he said something about ‘curdling,’ and Harry didn’t dare ask). But now that they were actually sitting down together, face to face, he didn't quite know how to act. He ate gratefully, at least. 

Voldemort also seemed content to eat in silence, so that was okay. Harry saw him glance across the table at him once or twice, and refused to acknowledge it. 

So, what _was_ he supposed to say to Voldemort in this situation? Should he just ask to be tortured, to normalize this bloody situation? Kick off a conversation: "It's a pity my parents are dead, isn’t it?” (No, as… kind as Voldemort could be, he was still orphaned because of him.) That did prompt a valid question though. "Um, do you know anything about… what's happening at Hogwarts?" 

Voldemort laughed darkly into his glass. "You mean, without you? And without me,” he added, slightly more thoughtfully. “It's descended into a sort of lethargic chaos, really. A number of them have moved into the forest. The castle itself is still intact, luckily." 

Luckily. "And… casualties?" 

"A few," he said, "from either side. Nobody you know, I believe." 

"Anybody you know?" 

Voldemort remained indifferent. "Yes," he answered, "but they don't matter." He poured himself another glass of wine. After a moment, he added with an unnerving, predatory grin, “But really, Harry, all I needed was _you_.” 

"Why me?" Harry pressed, unjustifiably emboldened. “You can’t need _me_ specifically for this potion.” 

Voldemort shrugged minutely, apparently unconcerned that Harry should know this. "Blood magic is stronger with more… passion involved. Whether positive or negative, it’s irrelevant. Anyway, what could have been more demoralizing for your side than your capture." 

Maybe he should work on feeling totally neutral toward Voldemort, to mess up his stupid potion then, he thought. 

"Dumbledore would have been even better," Voldemort added, spearing a round red tomato from his salad. "A pity he's dead." 

"You never would _touched_ Dumbledore if he were still alive." 

Voldemort merely smiled at Harry's indignation. "Perhaps not," he said placatingly, "but who's to say." He poured the remainder of the wine bottle into Harry's glass.

 

After dinner, Voldemort returned to his potion, and Harry did the washing up. And then he had the same problem he had faced for several days now, what to do with himself when Voldemort didn't need him.  Voldemort had asked-but-really-warned him to stay on the ground floor tonight, in sight and out of trouble, and he wasn’t curious enough to see what disobedience harbored. He looked around the kitchen and had an absurd thought of baking biscuits with this free time. 

It was weird, though, the bit he had said about passion being useful in blood magic. If that was the case, shouldn't Voldemort be making a concentrated effort to be especially cruel to Harry, in order to inspire his hatred? Unless he was aiming for his love instead, but that would be quite an effort, wouldn't it. He considered this as he gathered ingredients. 

Voldemort paused whatever he was doing with his potion. "Harry?" he called. 

"Yeah?" 

"What are you doing?" 

Dammit, Voldemort, just let him alone. "Making biscuits." 

"Making - ?" He seemed to consider this for a minute. "Right," he said, sounding bemused. 

He took sugar down from a cupboard. "Have you got any chocolate?" he called. Setting down the bags, he wandered into the living room. 

Voldemort was up to his elbows in the orange sludge of the potion. "Chocolate," he said. "There should be, yes. Shall I look?” 

Harry eyed the suspicious-looking sludge coating his hands. "I'll find it." But first, he stepped a little closer to the potion, and it bubbled unhappily at him. "You aren't actually swallowing that when it's done, are you?" he asked with distaste. 

Voldemort squeezed the goop between his long fingers. "When it's finished, it won't look like this anymore. But no, it will be injected." 

An even grosser alternative. "Oh. Um, good luck." He returned to the kitchen to figure out where Voldemort might keep chocolate. 

When he was scooping tablespoons of dough onto a baking sheet, Voldemort entered the kitchen. "You are baking biscuits." 

"Of course I am." He refused to be embarrassed by this. "Does the oven work by gas or magic?" 

"Ah, a bit of both, like the rest of this house.” Voldemort leaned against a counter as Harry cleaned up. “Tomorrow will be another long day, as today was. Would you rather be asleep for it?" 

"Probably, yeah." Voldemort got out of his way as he scrubbed out the mixing bowl. "With a sleeping potion?” 

"Something like that." How unnerving. 

So the biscuits turned out beautifully, thanks for asking, and the rest of the night was quiet. When Harry went to bed, Voldemort was still working on his potion by the glow of the fire. And again Harry gave serious thought to attacking him, or escaping, or anything more heroic than this complacent stasis. It just… didn’t seem like the right moment, yet. Of course. 

 

The next morning was deeply unsettling. When he woke up it was pitch-black. As in, he couldn't see his hand in front of his face. He blinked experimentally, glancing in the direction of where the window should be. Nothing. 

In a last effort, he cupped his hands in front of himself. "Lumos." He willed the magic into his hands, and felt its heat as a ball of light erupted in his palms. 

"Oh, that's lovely, I didn't know you could do wandless magic," Voldemort said mildly as he entered (the ball of light sputtered out). "But why expend magic on Lumos, of all things.” 

"I can't see anything," Harry said, tendrils of panic crawling up from his chest. 

"Day five, blindness. Interesting." The bed shifted as Voldemort sat down on its edge, and his weight beside Harry was helpfully orienting (he pushed the word _comforting_ out of his mind). The covers were pulled back and he snorted. "Were you going to mention you had wet the bed?" 

"I – " He placed a hand on his jeans; they were heavy and damp. "I hadn't realized. Sorry." Bugger. 

"Scourgify," Voldemort said, and he was dry again. "Is this…common for you?" 

"No," Harry answered. A hot blush was creeping up his face. 

"An act of defiance?" Voldemort was strangely amused by all of this, he could tell. 

" _No_." 

"So why now?" 

"It's only when I'm under a lot of stress." It was a little too candid, but… he had no lies at hand for this. 

He braced himself for Voldemort telling him how pathetic he was (and he wouldn’t necessarily disagree). Instead, Voldemort only said, “Right,” grabbing his wrists and pulled him toward the edge of the bed. "You need to get up, though, to begin on runes." 

Harry pulled his wrists out of Voldemort's grasp. Being blinded, he felt so bloody off-kilter. "Don't." 

"Harry, get up," Voldemort said with irritation. "I'll help, as I have _every_ day, but you've got to get your legs underneath you." The bed shifted again as he rose. 

Harry slipped his hands along the sheets until he found the edge of the bed, swinging his legs off. Voldemort took him by the shoulders and steered him away. 

Voldemort led him into the toilet, unzipping him without decorum. "Here, I can – " Harry reached for the zipper but Voldemort pushed his hand away. 

"It's a bit late to be shy," he said dryly. 

Right. Sod it all. “Just let me unzip." He undid his fly (feeling marginally safer than if Voldemort did it) and pushed the waistband of his shorts down, just enough to want to die. 

Voldemort extracted his cock. "Go ahead." 

Taking a breath, he let go. It took him a second and then he began to piss – and, with relief, he heard the stream hit the bowl. 

Voldemort shook him off when he finished, tucking his cock back in his shorts, redoing his fly. He washed their hands together as though Harry were a child (he suppressed his offense) and toweled them dry. Then the drawer next to his hip was opened and Voldemort pushed his toothbrush into his hand. When he nearly missed his mouth and smeared toothpaste on his chin, Voldemort snorted and corrected his aim. 

Dammit, this was impossible. He ducked his head, feeling blindly for the faucet. Voldemort twisted the tap on and rested a hand on his back. "Spit." He did. 

In the bedroom, Voldemort lowered him to the edge of the bed. "Lie back." He dropped what must have been the nappy bag at his feet. In resignation, Harry unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, lifting his hips to allow Voldemort to pin the nappy on. "Today will take awhile as well,” Voldemort said, “so perhaps you shouldn't… wait as long as yesterday.” 

Oh god. "Okay." 

"And I'm not trying to coax you down the stairs." And with that Harry was quite unexpectedly picked up. He yelped, throwing one arm around Voldemort's neck and clutching the front of his robes with the other. Voldemort didn't remark on this indignity, but carried him downstairs. 

He gripped more tightly when Voldemort tried to drop him. The sofa might have been underneath him, he thought, but one could never be too sure. "Harry, let go," Voldemort sighed, prying his fingers from the front of his robes one at a time and making a more careful effort to set him down.

Then there was a pause, and Voldemort touched his stomach. "What's this?" 

Oh, right. "Some of the ink wouldn't come off yesterday." 

"It wouldn't come off," Voldemort repeated. "Well, that happens when you wank." 

Dammit. "I didn't," Harry protested weakly, going hot from his blush. 

"You did." Voldemort was dabbing something on him – peppermint oil, by the smell and feel of it. "Wash the ink off first, at least, otherwise it’ll stain. Obviously." 

What could he possibly say to that? "Oh." 

"Do you want to sleep today?" Above him, Voldemort recapped the peppermint. "It'll be another dull day otherwise." 

"How?" 

"I make quite strong sleeping potions." Glasses clinked against each other as the jars were exchanged. 

"Yes. Please." 

Voldemort pushed his knees apart, perching at his ankles. "Here.” He must have been leaning in close, Harry could feel his breath on his collarbone. Voldemort slipped a cool spoon between his lips, sweet and unctuous. By the time Harry heard him unscrew the bottle of ink, he was about to drop off. 

When he woke up again, he was slowly wetting his nappy. Well, that was a lost cause anyway; he finished and contemplated whether to open his eyes or not. Voldemort was still writing methodically up his chest, but he was curious whether he had regained his vision yet. 

He must have squirmed or something, though, too much for Voldemort's liking. He sighed, lifting his quill from Harry’s skin. "Are you awake?" 

Bugger. "Ah, yeah." 

"The runes are halfway finished." 

That was fairly meaningless to him since he had no concept of time at the moment, in between his drugged sleep and current blindness (yes, still – he blinked a couple of times experimentally to be sure). "Okay." 

Voldemort removed himself from between Harry's knees and stood. "Another dose of sleeping potion?" he asked. Glasses clinked in the cabinet. "And you should piss now so I can change you, otherwise it'll be difficult later." 

Yeah, so Voldemort was already far too candid about this. "I already have," Harry answered evenly, willing himself not to blush. 

Voldemort sat down at Harry's feet. "Have you?" He leaned in and pressed a hand to the front of the nappy ( _God_ ). "I hadn't noticed." He unpinned the nappy and Harry flinched at the cool air. A zipper from somewhere on the floor was opened. "Keep your legs apart, there’s writing all down them." He prodded Harry's hip and he cautiously lifted himself off the sofa. Voldemort exchanged his wet nappy for a warm, dry one and let him lower himself onto it. A couple cleansing charms later, then he picked a bottle up from the coffee table. "And the sleeping potion." He once again pressed a spoon into Harry's mouth. 

He woke up again hopeful, though, that his vision would be back. His symptoms had always abated by evening, right? He opened his eyes. Nothing. _Dammit_. 

His frustration must have been obvious, because Voldemort patted his shoulder gently (if mockingly). "Nearly done." 

"Not this. Just that I’ve always recovered by evening – it is evening, right?" 

Voldemort paused, presumably to glance at the clock. "Just after six." 

"Yeah, so I still can't _see_." He was more upset than he should have been, really, but he felt especially helpless like this. 

Voldemort continued writing down his arm. "I'm not sure, really. Most people don't allow magical poisoning to run its course, so it's not all that researched, you know." 

"Of course most people don't let it _run its course_ , it's miserable," Harry sulked. 

"I know," Voldemort said soothingly. "But could you wait to be angry in about fifteen minutes? I'll be finished by then." 

"And I hate this sodding potion.” 

"Yes, well." Unconcerned, he continued to write. 

The scratching of the quill's tip against his skin was really akin to water torture, it was so subtly aggravating. Tears of frustration, and maybe hysteria a little, had welled up in his eyes. Bugger. And bugger again that Voldemort must have glanced up at him, because he snorted. "Oh, don't cry, for Merlin’s sake." He made a few more flourishes on Harry's wrist and let him go. "There. It’s finished." 

He helped Harry stand. "Down the back of your thighs today,” he offered, and Harry nodded. Voldemort drew two neat lines down his legs, collected blood from each, and healed him. "And a shower now." Harry nodded again mutely. 

So Voldemort did that one spell that made him feel sticky all over, then scooped him up to carry him upstairs. He set him right down in the tub, which he hadn't been expecting, and held him steady with one hand as he twisted the taps on with the other. "Here." He unpinned the nappy; Harry assumed from the cold feeling around his bits meant that it had been wet. Dammit, he didn't even _feel_ it anymore. 

Voldemort stuck his hand under the warm tap. "Is this alright?"

 "Yeah." 

"Good. The potion needs a few more things. The door will be open." Harry nodded and his footsteps receded out of the toilet. 

The panic had subsided now that he was no longer pinned between Voldemort and the sofa, with that incessant scratching quill. Plus, he found the soap on the first try. So things were well for the moment. He slumped against the wall and let the water pound into his skin. 

And when Voldemort found him like this, he called him indolent and grabbed the soap himself to scrub the last traces of ink off his skin. He had brought dinner up as well, and they sat on Harry's bed and Voldemort assisted him with silverware and the like (which was good, because it was terribly frustrating and, if left on his own, Harry would have simply given up and starved overnight). So it was just a quiet, frustrating, completely dependent sort of evening. 

When it came time for bed, Voldemort lay Harry down at the end of the bed. "You’re going to be in a nappy tonight," he informed Harry, "since your toilet training is clearly waning." 

Okay, so he feared that was true, but it was still humiliating to hear Voldemort say it. "It is not," he protested weakly as Voldemort tugged his shorts off. 

Voldemort snorted. "Right." He pulled Harry up by his ankles (he'd gotten better at not being so jarring, actually), slid the nappy underneath, and did him up efficiently. "Use it or not.” He tugged the plastic pants in place. "Goodnight." And he left, just like that. 

Harry crawled under the soft covers and ran a hand over the nappy experimentally. The entire thing was so warm and secure, he could just… wank in them. 

No, he couldn't, he admonished himself with a twinge of disgust. God, how depraved. And Voldemort would change him tomorrow morning, and he wouldn’t be able to bear it. Oh, or he could be poking around in Harry's mind right now and already know. Holding his breath obstinately, willed his mind shut. How was Occlumency even supposed to work, anyway? His lessons with Snape had been less than elucidating. Anyway, in his mind he built a little mental stone fortress around his brain so Voldemort couldn't tell when he did or didn't want to wank, or for what reason. Maybe he ought to learn Occlumency, after all. 

 

He woke up the next morning with mixed feelings. On one hand, his vision was restored, which was excellent. On the other, the ceiling had turned to sand, and waves were crashing upon it. He blinked, but it was still there. Probably bad, then. "Oh, sod off," he said to the giraffe who was peering curiously into his window. She turned and flounced off (as well as giraffes can flounce, anyway). 

The very worst part, though, was that he couldn't see the bedroom floor. Do you know why? Because it was covered with snakes. Vipers and cobras mostly, a few others thrown in. "Excuse me," he said in what he was pretty sure was Parseltongue, "can you move please? I need to use the toilet, and I don't want to step on any of you." The snakes leered at him. 

"Fine," he muttered (he wasn't sure in Parseltongue or English this time). "Don’t say I didn't warn you." He pushed the covers off, sticking one foot out. Before he could kick the snakes out of the way, a cobra lunged forward to bite his calf. 

" _Holy_ – " Withdrawing his leg, he clasped a hand to the wound. The cobra smirked at him, satisfied. 

He examined the bite. It was turning a deep purple, and his leg was already beginning to swell, but he didn't seem to be dying, at the moment. So he sat there, helpless, on his bed, and waited for Voldemort to come so he could exterminate the snakes. 

He really did have to piss though. He put a hand to his nappy: dry. Well, good, he could prove Voldemort wrong then (though there would be not as much satisfaction in that as one might think). Except he had to _go_ , critically. He could let just a little bit out to ease the pressure. He was safe in his nappy, after all. So he did. 

Embarrassingly, it felt so good to piss he may or may not have let out a tiny moan. God that was wonderful. He slumped back against the headboard and let it go for a few more seconds. His cock and balls became familiarly warm and wet. Sod it, he would do the lot then. 

"Harry?" He looked up (didn't bother to stop pissing) to see Ginny standing in the doorway, frowning at him with concern. "What are you doing?" 

"I'm pissing," he answered honestly. 

A pause. "Oh." She took the news well, and started to enter the room. 

"Don't!" Harry exclaimed. "Don't you see the snakes?" 

"Snakes?" 

"On the _floor_.” He gestured wildly. But they had moved respectfully out of her way and she walked through them, like Moses parting the serpentine sea, to take a seat on the edge of his bed. "I guess they like you," he said with a shrug, squeezing out the last few drops of piss. 

Ginny was looking at him with a peculiar expression. "It's good to see you," he said, sliding closer. "I'm glad you're okay." He leaned in and kissed the side of her mouth. 

The kiss was a shock: Ginny’s lips weren’t so plump as they usually were, and moreover they were ice-cold. He pulled away, and the vision of Ginny melted away into Voldemort, looking very perplexed indeed. "Oh my god," Harry groaned. 

Voldemort shook out a handkerchief to wipe his mouth delicately. "What is _wrong_ with you?" 

"I – " Maybe the snakebite was poisonous after all, and he was losing his mind. He threw the covers off his legs; the wound was now black and oozing. "Look." 

Voldemort looked. "Your legs? Yes, Harry, they're very nice," he mocked. 

Was he _blind_? "No, a snake bit me this morning, that's why I didn't get up to go to the toilet. Dunno why they let you through." 

Voldemort didn't answer, but Harry felt Legilimency push his mind open. "Stop," he protested. 

Voldemort withdrew a moment later. "Day six, hallucinations," he said. "Of course." 

Well, that was comforting. Except for the fact that his leg was decaying before his eyes and he had kissed Voldemort. Fuck. 

"None of it is real," Voldemort said patiently. "Get up, your _snakes_ will only strike if you expect them to." He pulled Harry out of bed and the snakes did indeed slither out of his way. 

"It will be a short day." Voldemort leaned against the doorway of the toilet, watching Harry brush his teeth. "Which is a pity because it seems that you will be a joy to be around today." 

Harry wondered if he meant the quirky hallucinations bit or the kissing bit (no, he wasn't going to get over that anytime soon). He spat, avoiding the frog sitting in the basin, but it hopped happily under the tap when he turned it on. "It’s great _you’re_ taking so much pleasure in this, then." He let himself be led back into the bedroom to be changed. 

They got themselves situated, Harry in Voldemort's lap, in good time. Harry watched as miniature airplanes – big pregnant bombers and stingray-shaped stealth planes – circled above him while Voldemort wrote lines across his back. 

He had set breakfast on the coffee table in front of Harry, with eggs and sausage and thick slices of toast. Two of the pieces of toast had formed themselves into a mouth and were nibbling at the edges of his scrambled eggs. As he found this rather obnoxious, Harry squeezed his eyes shut to pull the bready mouth apart ruthlessly. When he could bear to look again, they lay docilely on the plate as though nothing had ever happened. 

Well, at least he wouldn't be bored today. 

Later, when Voldemort was halfway down his back, there was a knock on the door. Before either of them could react, it swung open, and there was a velociraptor in the doorway, blinking at them. 

Oh, wait (his brain adjusted itself), it was only Bellatrix.

Fuck, he would have preferred the raptor. 

Bella gazed at him, slack-jawed, for a minute. Then she looked up at Voldemort accusingly. "You told us he was _dead_." 

Voldemort continued to write, but placed his other hand on Harry's shoulder, subtly holding him there. "Did I?" he asked neutrally. 

She stalked in and pushed the door closed behind herself heavily. "In no uncertain terms. Is _he_ the reason why you haven't joined us at Hogwarts?" 

Harry couldn't imagine Voldemort was used to being addressed in this fashion. Nor could he imagine Bella going on like this much longer before she got Crucio’d for it. Voldemort’s quill hovered for a few seconds. "No," he said in a measured tone. "I have no need of that futile skirmish any longer." Bella's face twisted in indignation. "You're free to orchestrate things there as you’d like. But I've got more pressing things to which to attend." 

"What could be more pressing than _this_?" She didn't even sound angry anymore, only incredulous. She descended the stairs into the sunken living room, dropping into the armchair across from them. "Scrimgeour was captured today. That's what I came to tell you, my Lord." She dropped her gaze appeasingly. 

"Alive or dead?" 

"Alive right now. Nobody would do anything before you were informed." 

"Hm." Voldemort seemed interested for the first time in this conversation. "It is an opportunity." He set down his quill. "Where is he being kept?" 

She shrugged. "Snape's got him, he wouldn't say." 

"Yes, well, you’ve never done much for Snape either." He screwed the lid back on his bottle of ink. 

Harry had been staring at the ants swarming the carpet and willing Bellatrix to just not acknowledge him in any way. Voldemort cast that sticky spell on his work so far. "Something must be done about Scrimgeour, then." He pushed Harry off his lap. "I'll finish later," he murmured. Harry nodded, mute in Bellatrix's presence. 

She was looking at them with some confusion, and her gaze followed Harry as he ascended the staircase to return to his room. (Since the stairs kept trying to slip out underneath him, this was a greater feat than usual.) While he wanted to prop the door open to hear anything else of note, it would have been too obvious. He swept the seashells off his blanket – presumably left over from the shoreline on the ceiling earlier – and took a seat. 

He had been so isolated here, the battle at Hogwarts had finally just… receded in his mind. And now Scrimgeour was captured. And if Voldemort were to choose Scrimgeour's fate, Harry had no misconceptions about which side he was on. Even so, he didn't want to, well, _hate_ Voldemort. 

The revelation startled him. But it was _true_. Downstairs, he heard Voldemort and Bellatrix getting ready to leave. He jumped up to plead with Voldemort not to kill Scrimgeour, but as soon as his hand touched the doorknob, it (the doorknob, not his hand) turned into orange jelly and melted into a sticky mess. " _Dammit_." He knew it was all in his head, but try as he might, he couldn't grasp the knob solidly enough to open it. Finally accepting his defeat, he went to wash the stickiness off his hands. 

Which produced a stare-down with his reflection in the mirror (which not so unusual as everything else; he had dealt with rebellious mirrors before). It looked him up and down in a very critical, un-Harry-like way, and pronounced with disdain, "Pathetic." 

"What's pathetic?" he asked wearily. 

"You know he'll probably just kill you when he's done with you, right? And isn't that _tomorrow_?" 

"It is," Harry affirmed. The jelly had stained his hands a vibrant orange; he had to scrub with his nails to get it off. 

"And since when are you so mild-mannered? My _god_ – " his reflection pounded the glass but managed to avoid breaking it (probably because he wasn't real) " – you used to be so plucky and fearless." 

"I was never fearless," Harry interjected. 

His reflection ignored him. "And now you're his willing lapdog? _Literally_ ," he snorted. "Quit acting like you’re in love." 

That was so untrue that he had never even considered it that way before. "We're not in love," he said firmly to his reflection. "And I don't think he's going to kill me. Although he might," he conceded, and his reflection smirked at him. "But why worry about that now." He dried his hands on a towel. 

"Also, you look bloody ridiculous going about in a nappy," was evil-Harry's parting shot. Harry flipped the light switch off, swinging the door closed behind himself. 

He did look ridiculous in a nappy, that was true, but he wasn't especially bothered by it (except when Bellatrix invaded and witnessed him, but, well). The rest of it? He lay down on his bed, on his stomach so as not to disturb the ink, and braided a few stray threads of the comforter as these accusations gnawed at his gut. 

He was so deep in thought that he must not have heard the front door swing open or the footsteps on the stairs. He _did_ , however, hear his door swing open, and rolled onto his side to look. 

Bellatrix stood in his doorway, grinning like a skull. "Harry,” she crooned. “It's so good to know you're not dead." She pushed the door closed behind herself, taking an uninvited seat on his bed. "Everyone is very worried. But I think that this development will make them _very_ happy." 

He moved to get up, but Bellatrix was really blocking his only viable exit, and she was clutching her wand tightly. When he moved, she shot ropes out of her wand that bound him to the bed. Not the glowing stretchy kind, but thick, fibrous ropes that were going to lacerate his wrists. Bugger. He glared at her. "Where's Voldemort?" 

"Still taking care of things," she answered in her sing-song voice. "Snape came for the potion, and the Dark Lord asked me to come along, to be sure he doesn't ruin anything." 

Goddamn, Snape too. "You should be downstairs with him, then." 

"I wanted to see my favorite Boy-Who-Lived." She leaned over, running her fingernails over his torso. He resisted the urge to spit in her face, because it would really only make the situation worse for him. Tempting, though. 

Then Bellatrix's hand slid farther down, to the top of his nappy. "You must tell me, though, why you're wearing _this_. The Dark Lord didn't elucidate." 

Well, no, it was hardly her business. "Don't touch me." 

She smirked, pinching his stomach with her long nails. "I think," she said softly, "that your allies will be rather dismayed that you're now spending your days being so sweet and cooperative to the Dark Lord, and soiling yourself." She grinned as though she’d reached the punchline to a joke. "Maybe you _would_ be better off dead." 

She raised her wand, but this time Harry was quicker: he kicked her right in the jaw. 

She screamed, raising her wand over her head with a flourish. " _Crucio_!" Cracking the spell through the air, she spat blood as she cursed him. 

Crucio still felt like he was being rent in a million pieces. He thrashed against the ropes, not caring how badly they would rip his hands up, if only he could knock the wand out of Bellatrix's hand to make it stop. 

"I would _kill_ you," she said viciously, blood dripping down her chin, "if the Dark Lord hadn't said he wants to do it himself." He could scarcely hear her words over the shrill ringing in his ears, the whooshing of his own blood that he was certain he could hear beneath his skin. She spat a mouthful of blood onto his torso and he flinched. "So this will have to suffice." 

God, he was going to pass out soon. After a time the pain becomes secondary, and he seemed less and less able to form any coherent thoughts, finally unable to focus long enough to shove Bellatrix, stop her, anything…. 

He was saved a minute later (mind, a minute is a fucking long time under the Cruciatus) when his bedroom door was opened again. Bella whirled around at the noise, breaking her concentration and the spell. Harry slumped exhaustedly into his sheets, each nerve in his body pulsating at a different rate. God, he couldn't _move_. He closed his eyes and took shallow, excruciating breaths. 

"Bellatrix." It wasn't Voldemort who had saved him, then, but Snape. No doubt by accident. He would maybe thank him later then. 

"Yes." She sounded breathless and exhilarated from casting the Cruciatus. "Look what the Dark Lord's got." 

"Well, of course." Harry opened his eyes to see Snape looking very peculiarly at him, then back at Bellatrix. "Potter’s needed for a bit of magic. You didn't know that?" 

Bella didn't seem too very eager to answer that. "I haven't compromised his magic. Crucio doesn't hurt anything." 

Harry would have laughed at that statement if it wouldn't have killed him to do so. Snape raised an eyebrow at her. "I certainly hope it doesn't, for your own sake." He motioned for her to leave, before drawing his wand. "If I cut off the ropes," he said to Harry, "would you remain here?" 

"Yes." God, what else _could_ he do? Just the thought of moving made him panic. 

Snape removed the ropes and, as an afterthought, cleaned up Bellatrix's disgusting glob of blood and spit that had run down Harry's side. He left before Harry could decide whether he should say thank you or not. 

When he had the strength and inclination to lift his arms from where they had dropped by his head, he did so. His wrists had been predictably rubbed raw, leaving smears of blood on the pillowcase. Voldemort would deal with it later. He rested his hands on his abdomen – it hurt incrementally less than the fibers of his covers – and listened for activity downstairs. Not much; he could make out the voices of Snape and Bellatrix but not what they were saying. No indication of Voldemort. 

His wrists were beginning to dry against his skin, which was really rather disgusting. He unglued himself painfully. 

And, as he did, he heard the door open downstairs, and his heart leapt. Then another voice – _Voldemort's_ voice. He couldn't even articulate why this made him so wonderfully happy. The only thing he could make out was Voldemort's, " _What_?" and his footsteps on the stairs a moment later. 

He threw open the door and sighed, "Oh, Harry." (He didn't think he looked _that_ bad, to be honest, but for the blood smeared everywhere. At least the ropes and spittle were gone.) Voldemort cleaned up his blood from everything and healed his raw wrists, one at a time. "What happened?" he asked cursorily, casting Legilimency before Harry could even begin to explain. It only lasted a moment though, then Voldemort cast a few analgesic charms. "Stay here." He left. 

Harry got up to peer downstairs after him, since he hadn’t shut the door entirely. Bellatrix was on her knees on the carpet: Voldemort had grabbed her by her wild hair and was speaking in very low, angry tones to her. Snape was behind the cauldron as though it were any sort of barrier. Wincing, Harry closed the door quietly, waiting for them to leave. 

Soon enough, Voldemort returned. "Harry." Something twisted within him, the way he said it. Voldemort grabbed his hands, pulling him standing and turning him around to examine his back. "Most of it's still intact." 

The ink. Right. “I forgot. Sorry." 

"It can be fixed.” He led Harry out of his room.  "I didn't intend to be gone long. And I _certainly_ didn't intend for Bellatrix or Snape to have any contact with you." 

His insides twisted harder. "I know." 

"Good." 

They situated themselves on the sofa again, Harry obediently on Voldemort's lap. The damage done must not have been bad at all, somehow; he felt Voldemort rewrite only a few runes before he resumed midway down his back. 

At least the hallucinations were gone. He hadn't noticed it at first, but they had been gone since about, he guessed, when Bella Crucio'd the hell out of him. Which was interesting, really (he considered mentioning it to Voldemort, as he'd think it was interesting too, and maybe even have an explanation for it). 

"That is interesting," Voldemort said mildly, a moment later. “I’d only have conjecture, however.” 

Wanker. "The Legilimency really has to stop." 

"Oh, Harry," Voldemort sighed in the most patronizing way. "You're simply so  unguarded, you’re practically broadcasting every inane thought in your head. Do you think I _want_ to hear these things?" 

Harry furiously began rebuilding his mind fortress. "Of course you're capable. I'm asking that you _don't_." 

"What don’t you want witnessed?" 

" _Anything_ , really.” 

Voldemort made no promises but continued to copy his runes. 

When he got to the base of Harry's spine, he didn't turn Harry around, but pushed the top of his nappy down a little to start another line across, well, the top of his arse. Which was a little bit invasive, even as undressed or undignified as Voldemort had seen him already. He shifted uncomfortably. 

"Nearly finished." And when he had penned the final line curving over Harry's right hip, he set his quill down. 

Harry stood up hesitantly. "That's it?" 

"Yes." 

Harry handed him his knife. "That was so short, though." And it was unusual, by now, to look down at himself and not be covered in ink. 

"Yes. Tomorrow will be brief as well. Today will be like this:" and he drew a V from his shoulders to about where his heart would be from the back. He felt two quick, painless slashes and then the cool glass of the beaker pressed to the tip of the V. He was healed, as usual, and pushed in the direction of the shower. "We'll eat when you get out." 

The nappy was still dry, he was pleased to find, because fuck, he never _knew_ anymore, really. He twisted the taps on. 

He ended up pissing in the shower, accidentally-on-purpose (he could have tried a bit harder to hold it and get to the toilet, but the hot water streaming down his legs had been a little too persuasive a feeling). And when he had returned to his room to get dressed, his hand faltered upon reaching for his shorts. He didn't want to wear pants. If he was honest with himself, he wanted to just be in a nappy. Upon consideration, he decided it wouldn't be a problem, apart from perhaps a few deadpan comments from Voldemort. He retraced his steps into the toilet where the bag of nappies and things had been left. 

It was the first time he had seen the inside of the bag, actually, and some of the items inside were more… sexually charged than he had anticipated. Maybe there were valid reasons for the lube and the rubbers. Though if he were able to open any windows, that thing that he suspected was a buttplug would get chucked _right_ out. In any case, he shoved _those_ things aside and extracted a nappy. 

It felt soft and comforting in his grasp, and he placed it on the bed to sit carefully upon it. It would be easier, much easier, if Voldemort did it for him, but he was going to be self-sufficient this time. Pinching the side together over his left hip, he fished for a safety pin in the bag, and fastened it. Then the same over his right hip, then he stood up experimentally. It wasn't as snug as Voldemort made it (even after re-fastening the first, looser side) but good enough. Anyway, the plastic pants he tugged on afterward made everything a little more fitted, pressing the soft fabric against him. 

He then tried getting dressed for real, but when he tugged his jeans on, they felt _wrong_ with a nappy on: tight against his arse, stretched oddly over his thighs. He peeled them off again, shuddering. 

Well then, he try being a real wizard and wear his robes with nothing underneath. He picked up the black robe hanging on the bedpost and threw it on. It was a fairly heavy one, made for the cold of late fall, and concealed a lot of the bulge, except for how broad his hips looked and probably his arse too. He would feel ridiculous, though, putting on his socks and trainers with no pants on, so he went downstairs in bare feet too. 

Voldemort was leaning casually over the sink, eating strawberries (Where on earth had he bought strawberries in November). He glanced over his shoulder and nodded Harry over. He offered him the bowl of strawberries and, cautiously joining him, Harry took one. 

Voldemort looked him over, and casually slipped a hand into his robe. Harry stepped back and pushed his hand away. "Don't." 

"Are you in a nappy?" 

"Yes." 

Voldemort nodded, dropping the end of the strawberry into the sink. "Would you like to stay in them, then?" 

God. He choked out his answer: "Um. If I could." 

“You may.” And then Voldemort moved to stir the skillet, and Harry bit into another strawberry, marveling that that somehow hadn’t been a problem. 

Chunks of lamb were sizzling in the skillet, and Voldemort had cast a spell that was chopping green onions over them. On the other side of Harry, purple cabbage was shredding itself into a large bowl. With a stab of guilt and fear, he was suddenly reminded him of Mrs. Weasley. He looked over at Voldemort. "How is Scrimgeour?" he asked tentatively. 

Voldemort smiled darkly. "Alive. That's the best that could be said for him right now." 

Oh, well… good? "And everyone else?" 

Voldemort shrugged. "Weary." He pushed the lamb to one side, adding the cabbage. "No casualties today, but some impressive injuries. Most of the students have either been sent home or they’ve gone into hiding, so it’s largely Aurors fighting now." 

"Good." 

Voldemort raised where his eyebrows should be. “What sort of disciplinary measure comes with allowing the Minister to be captured, do you think?” It was a subtle barb (subtle for him, at least), and Harry had no response to it. He poured them both wine instead, giving himself a moment to solidify his impassive look. 

They ate side-by-side at the kitchen table, with silence that hung between them not uncomfortably. And afterward when Voldemort returned to the potion (that one sticky spell had thrown it off again), Harry did the washing up and poured himself to another glass of wine. 

He spent most of the evening on the sofa in the living room, with Voldemort working on things and the fire crackling behind them. By now, he was at the point of telling himself it was too late to escape, that he’d be dealt with one way or another after tomorrow. At the present, though, the alcohol was making him feel warm and lethargic, and there were long moments when his knotted insides seemed to ease, when the weeks of adrenaline seemed to have finally abated. It felt a little like contentment. But that was just the alcohol. 

He had closed his eyes for just a couple of minutes when Voldemort's voice cut through his sleepy haze: "Harry?" He glanced up; Voldemort had turned his potion down to a low simmer, now simply looking at him. "You should go to bed.” 

"Ah, yeah." He rolled himself off the sofa, stretching out the kinks in his back. 

"Do you need to be changed?" 

Actually, he had to piss pretty substantially, now considering it. But what could he say: 'Momentarily, hold on,' and spread his legs? So he just shook his head. 

"Right. Goodnight." 

"'Night." He climbed the stairs to his bedroom. 

It would probably be feasible for him to just pull the plastic pants down and piss through one of the leg holes. Or (his heart fluttered), he could simply play a private hold-it game, and go to sleep. He threw his robe off, pushing his thighs together as he settled into bed. 

But, as lethargic as he had been just a few minutes ago, this thought had woken him up too well. Especially his cock, stiff against the front of the nappy. Dammit. 

He rolled over onto his stomach, wincing as his bladder got squished. He slipped a hand underneath the covers, intending to hold himself to stave off some of his urge to piss. But instead when he grabbed his cock, it stiffened in his hand. " _Dammit_." Betrayed by his own body. He really did want to sleep. He rubbed himself through the nappy at first, but ended up thrusting against the mattress like a horny schoolboy, scared of being caught. His bladder kept spasming from the shifting pressure, and when he thought he was honestly going to piss himself, panic surging through him, he shot his load into the front of his nappy instead. Immediately he grabbed himself, though, to keep from pissing. And with the post-orgasmic contentment overwhelming all his other feelings, he was able to fall asleep. 

He woke up several hours later (or something like that, it was quite dark outside) and he had to _go_. He was still holding himself, more tightly than before. But the nappy was still dry, aside from the now-dried spatters of come. 

In the back of his mind he wished Voldemort had tied him to the bed, holding him there helplessly. In fact – 

There would be some sort of restraints in the nappy bag. He sat up, groaning as his bladder sloshed, and hoisted the bag into bed. 

He flipped the bedside lamp on as he sifted through it. All the nappy things, of course, and the rubbers and lube. Another part was filled with clamps, black metal ones of all sizes. Something like a magic dildo, that wiggled enticingly as he poked it ( _god_ ). And then a pair of silver shackles glinted from the bottom of the bag. He seized them victoriously. 

They had maybe a foot of chain between them. Perfect. He looped it through the headboard and snapped one shackle around his wrist. He switched the light off, moving the bag to the floor before snapping the other one on. 

As soon as his head hit the pillow he realized his mistake. " _Fuck_. Fuck fuck fuck." He hadn't even considered the key. How bloody idiotic. And mortifying, if Voldemort had to come rescue him from himself. Which he likely would. Fuck. 

He pulled hard at the shackles in the desperate hope that one of them hadn't locked properly and would release him. No luck. " _Alohomora_ ," he said, grabbing the shackles and willing magic into his hands. He couldn't feel anything happen, and Alohomora wasn't _that_ much more difficult than Tempus or Lumos. What if they couldn't be opened with magic, then? Dammit. 

He squeezed his eyes shut. Well, he could always hope for the sweet release of death before the morning. Otherwise? Voldemort had been surprisingly nonchalant about the nappy this evening, but there must be a limit to his, well, generosity. (He pushed the word _indulgence_ out of his head.) 

At least this stupid crisis had distracted him from his need to piss momentarily. But now that he was lying still, with nothing else to concentrate on, it seemed twice as bad. And now he couldn't even hold himself. Which was what he wanted in the first place. Why? Because he was a stupid fetishist. The very stupidest. He pressed his legs together. He wouldn't piss, not yet. But even in the dark, he could see how swollen his lower stomach was. He closed his eyes again and tried thinking of other things. 

He must have dozed off again, as impossible as that seemed in his condition, because when he woke up again, the first bit of dawn was breaking through the clouds. He was still dry, too, miraculously; though his pelvic muscles ached from being so tense for so long. He was lying there, with his legs crossed futilely, when he heard a movement downstairs. His stomach twisted over on itself. And then Voldemort climbed the stairs. 

Harry closed his eyes and focused on making his breathing slow and even. Even so, it might have caught in his throat when the door opened. 

There were a few moments of silence that terrified him, and then an incredulous laugh. "Harry, I know you're not asleep." 

He opened his eyes but looked toward the window, and pointedly _not_ at Voldemort. "Go away." 

"Is that what you want? You seem to be in quite a quandary." 

His most eloquent answer to this would have been _Piss off,_ but now was probably not the best time to mouth off. "Could you let me up, then?" He was blushing so hard, he could see the redness spreading down his bare chest in tendrils. Dammit. 

"Ah, no, I can't. There’s no longer a key for those, and they're impervious to magic, so we'll have to sever your hands. You may be able to re-attach them, though.” 

Harry finally looked over at him. Kidding, maybe. Such a funny guy. " _Please_ let me up," he repeated. 

Voldemort leaned against the doorframe, a smirk playing on his thin lips. "Not without an explanation. An honest one." 

Oh, goddamn him. "You wouldn’t rather just Legilimency it out of my head?" 

"I would rather hear your explanation. I would _relish_ it.” 

It really was imperative that he piss, like, now. His bladder spasmed and he gasped involuntarily. "I've got to piss," he groaned, as though that would change Voldemort’s mind about anything. 

"Have you still got your nappy on?" 

"Yes, but – " The first spurt escaped him and he shivered. "I've been waiting since last night," he said, unsure if that explained anything or not. 

For Voldemort it did; the smirk grew more pronounced. "Ah. So instead of using the toilet, you chained yourself to the bed?" 

"No. Well, yes, kind of. Not at first."

 "Pray tell, why?" 

"Because – " Forcing each word was torture; his blush was burning him up. "Because I didn't want to piss yet, but that was to keep me from… holding myself." He pushed those words out like he would choke on them. 

Voldemort was terribly amused by this. Harry didn't care, he was slipping every few seconds, making him shudder each time, and the nappy grew wetter under him. 

"And were you successful?" 

A long stream burst out of him at that moment, and he bit down hard on his lower lip to keep from gasping. That was the only answer Voldemort needed, he could see it on his face. Still, he answered evenly, "I was.” And then the spurts became a steady stream, his lower body having surrendered, and he was sure the hiss against wet cotton was completely, deafeningly audible. 

Voldemort had drawn closer. “What did you have planned after that?” 

 _A wank_ went without saying. "I don't know. I forgot about the key until… it was too late." 

"Clearly." He finally approached the bed, dropping the black bag at Harry’s feet. "I couldn’t determine," he said as he rummaged through it, "if your fondness for nappies was for convenience or because you're terribly kinky." He found the key, unlocking Harry's wrists as though he were doing him a massive favor (which, fine, he _was_ ). "So now we’ve got the answer to _that_." 

Lying at this futile point might be even more embarrassing than telling the truth. “Yeah,” he muttered, dropping his head to ostensibly stretch out his stiff shoulders. And although he was still dribbling into the nappy, he was clearly about to saturate it, so forcibly stopped himself (again stifling a groan at the pleasure and pain that elicited). 

Voldemort threw the shackles and their key back into the bag. "The next time you care to do something like this, _tell_ me, it will simplify things." Harry nodded, unable to look at him. "It's a quarter after six now, and you’re not necessary until mid-morning, so sleep or wank or whatever you had planned." 

God, sometimes Voldemort…. Whatever. "Alright," he agreed noncommittally. "Um, thank you." 

Voldemort just _looked_ at him. "You're welcome," he said, deadpan, and left. 

When Harry went to shower, he finished pissing in there too, and had another wank like he had intended. Not even Voldemort could deter him from that. He was sore from holding his bladder for so long, and from being in some state of arousal that entire time, too. After holding back so much for so long, his orgasm was violent, forcing him to brace himself against the wall because his knees wouldn’t quite work for awhile afterward. And after cleaning up, he crawled back into bed naked. 

But when he woke up again, it was because he couldn't breathe. He pushed the heavy comforter off himself, gulping in deep breaths. Voldemort was downstairs, he could hear him banging his potions things around. His shortness of breath got worse. Today was the last day for him, why didn't he remember that earlier? He would die and Voldemort would remember him as the bloody incompetent fetishist. He swallowed hard. 

But that didn't matter. He was going to _die_. He would have outlived his usefulness after tonight, as far as Voldemort was concerned, and he would finally have his victory after sixteen years of failure. Harry had gotten luckier than really was fair for one person, he knew that, but this looked like a lost cause. He didn't even have his wand, much less a plan for survival. 

By the time Voldemort was ascending the staircase, Harry had worked himself into a tearful frenzy. Well, he could try. He got out of bed, taking a sun-bleached ballerina statue from the shelf. And when Voldemort opened the door, he was poised for action, and smashed the figurine into his face. 

Voldemort stumbled back a few paces, clutching his hand to his face. "Potter, _goddammit_." He drew his wand with the hand that wasn't holding his bloody (non-) nose. The ballerina statue got blasted into dust before he set to healing himself. 

Harry was shaking with adrenaline. "When are you going to kill me?" he demanded. 

"In a minute or two," Voldemort said darkly. "Really, what the hell." 

"Today's the last day," Harry went on, in an unsuccessfully measured tone. "So after you're finished with me, when are you going to kill me? And _how_?" he added. "A Killing Curse? I don't want it to hurt, I don’t know if it does. But something quick, I don't want to suffer." This new terror gripped his heart. "Please, I've been so good, the least you could do in return – " 

" _Harry_ ," Voldemort interrupted firmly. He had fixed himself, but for the faintest traces of blood. "I don't want to talk to you like this. Come downstairs." 

"Like _what_?" Harry said shrilly. Tears were coursing freely down his cheeks now, dripping onto his chest. "I have to _know_."

Voldemort rolled his eyes, pushing him out of the way. He took the black bag in one hand and the back of Harry's neck with the other. "Downstairs." 

Voldemort could kill him right now, he probably knew all the pressure points or whatever you hit to kill somebody. He could certainly snap Harry’s neck. Harry descended the staircase as though there were a gallows at the bottom. 

Voldemort, luckily, released him in the living room, pushing him onto the sofa. "Stay there." He lit a second burner and began _throwing_ things into the cauldron. So he was preparing something. Not Avada Kedavra. 

"Are you going to poison me?" Harry asked timidly, wiping snot and tears off his face as best as he could. 

Voldemort tossed a box of tissues on the sofa beside him. "Only if I'm lucky." He crushed berries with the flat of a blade and added their juice to the cauldron. "Give me ten minutes." 

Harry curled up weepily into the sofa with his box of tissues. As much as he mopped his panicked tears off his cheeks, they came faster than he could wipe them away. And he still couldn't breathe, gasping in between his pathetic sobs. So he crouched there, terrified and hyperventilating, as Voldemort planned some creative way to kill him. 

He wondered how good the wards were. Maybe if he threw himself hard enough against them, they would break. Everything had a breaking point eventually, right? He wondered how Voldemort would stop him if he just sprinted for the door. 

He was about to do it, too, when Voldemort reduced the heat on this new potion and filled a glass of it. "Here – " 

"Like _hell_ ," Harry interrupted, swiping at the proffered glass. 

Voldemort pulled it back. "Right, I'll do it then." Before Harry could move, or hit him or anything else, Voldemort had pinned him against the sofa, one knee in his stomach and one hand against his collarbone. 

"Get _off_   - " 

Voldemort forced the glass to his lips and poured enough in, clapping his hand over Harry’s mouth. "Swallow." 

He was too busy trying not to aspirate it, actually. He clawed at Voldemort's hand desperately, convinced he was going to die of drowning instead of poisoning. "Harry,” Voldemort said gently. "I know. Swallow first." And so he swallowed, as deliberately as Socrates had taken the  hemlock. 

Voldemort let him go and he coughed so hard, his eyes watered, but then he took a couple deep breaths… and everything was okay. Voldemort conjured him a glass of water. "You nearly _killed_ me," Harry said accusingly. 

Voldemort raised an eyebrow and Harry felt really fucking stupid for having said that. He sipped his water before asking, "What was that?" 

"A calming draught. Didn't you recognize it?" Voldemort was pouring the rest into a glass jar, screwing the lid on tightly. "Day seven might best be described as hysteria." 

"Oh." 

Voldemort watched him cautiously for any further outbursts; when Harry had settled, he went on: "Runes, then? Or, well, let's nappy you first." (Harry gratefully let him do so. And without a single remark on how he was getting off on them, even.) And finally he pulled Harry into his lap once more, in order to write on his bare back. 

"So," Harry began softly as Voldemort began copying runes. "What _does_ happen after today?" 

There was a pause. "Do you really want to discuss it?" 

"Yes." 

He felt an exhalation on the back of his neck before Voldemort said, "Even if you're relatively unaware of what this potion does, if the Ministry got a hold of you – of your memories, rather – they could put such privileged information to use." 

"So you _are_ going to kill me," Harry said flatly. 

"Perhaps. If you'd like. Though your death would escalate this conflict in some inconvenient ways,” he added thoughtfully. “Otherwise a strong memory charm would be sufficient, I think, and you could return… home. Wherever that might be." 

A wave of guilt flooded him. Thoughts of Hogwarts and his friends had receded sometime this past week, not just because he was trapped but also because he was… content? Safe? In hindsight, this place had become an odd little bubble of tranquility, somehow less dangerous than the battle at Hogwarts. 

Either Voldemort Legilimencied him _again_ , or it was simply apparent they had the same thought on their minds. "I don't recommend Hogwarts at the moment," he continued. "As noble as you may like to be, it's not a battle any longer, it's simply chaos. And the rest of the Wizarding world…." Harry felt him shrug. 

"I want to go back,” Harry decided, speaking it aloud to solidify it. "People have to know I’m alright. I have to know _they’re_ alright. It’d boost morale, wouldn’t it, to rejoin them?” 

Voldemort's quill paused in the middle of his back. "Well, dear, we're on opposite sides," he said with some amusement. "So yes, _your_ allies would likely be thrilled. Turn the page." 

Harry did so; they were almost at the end of this thick tome of runes. "What, you think it'd make the fighting worse? I just want it to stop." 

"The conflict's escalated beyond anything that you could personally stop, really. There's no reason to throw yourself in the thick of it." 

"Then I just want to see my _friends_ again.” Of course he did. He just wouldn’t know how to account for this strange, complacent week.

"Mm. I'll bring you to the edge of Diagon Alley tomorrow, would that suffice?" 

"Yeah. Thank you." Voldemort bent Harry double to write farther down his back, and they fell into silence. 

So Harry was rather consumed with a newfound anxiety about going home (or wherever) in under a day. His first stop should probably be to the Ministry of Magic, to debrief and trade them all the information he had. Not that he'd be of much use to them, if the memory wipe was thorough (and Harry could only assume Voldemort cast _great_ memory charms). The past week, gone; that was a difficult thought as well. So he broke the silence: "Are you going to take _all_ my memories? Or only the, whatever, incriminating ones?" 

Voldemort again lapsed into his didactic tone: "Memory isn't itemized, you can't specifically pick and choose every detail to take out. If I only took portions, the Ministry could recover them. It would be like patching a hole in an old cloak, instead of throwing the thing out, do you see? I need you to turn around," he added, having reached the small of Harry's back. 

Harry re-situated himself on the sofa. "But then where will this week have gone?” At Voldemort’s blank look, he tried re-phrasing, “I mean, what would I think had happened? I can’t just remember _nothing_.” 

Voldemort moved in closer, pushing Harry's chin up to write across his collarbone. "People live contented lives after _years_ of memory loss. You'd be fine.” A pause. “I had expected that you would be happier.” 

"I am happy." Maybe he'd skip the Ministry, then. Or only go to find Arthur there, to ensure that the Weasleys were okay, to find where they were staying. The Burrow hopefully remained untouched. 

And the Order, he'd have to ask about the Order. Surely its members were among the remaining fighters. Snape would have known; if only he'd given any indication while he had been here. Unless his very presence had been an indication that the Order was gone, that he’d allied himself with Voldemort for good. Fuck. He should've asked Snape when he'd had the chance, but he didn't actually want to hear the answer. If the Death Eaters had gotten Scrimgeour – _Scrimgeour_ , with his Auror experience and eye for war strategy – what chance did anyone else have? 

If he went home, he'd have to face whatever casualties awaited him. Even (he dared not hope) if casualties were low, there would be unspeakable amounts of upheaval, the closure of Hogwarts, the chaos in the Ministry. He couldn't do it, _couldn't_ return to that. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, and his chest heaved for desperate breaths. 

Voldemort had paused, now simply watching Harry. "How interesting. I can see your heartbeat," he said, laying a finger on the fluttering flesh in the soft part between Harry's ribs. "Here." He reached over to the table for the jar of calming draught. "Drink this. At worst an overdose would put you to sleep for the rest of the day, but that’s preferable to… this.” He motioned vaguely at Harry’s pathetic, sweating, hyperventilating state. 

He tried pressing the jar into Harry's hand, but he refused. "You can't just _drug_ me into not caring. Everyone I love could be dead, a calming draught's not going to fix that." The more he thought about it, the truer it became. He felt his throat close up in anticipation of tears. 

Voldemort didn't even respond to this. Instead he drew his wand, and with a flourish – 

 

When Harry came to, it was early evening and Voldemort was in the kitchen. He was still sprawled on the sofa, covered in runes, apparently finished for the day. He took a sip of the calming draught pre-emptively, before the hysteria set in again. Then, taking the jar with him, he rolled off the sofa and went to see what Voldemort was doing. 

Dinner, that's what. Good, he was starving. "Hi." The kitchen was bright and warm and busy,  overstimulating him. He shook off the feeling as best as he could. “Can I help?” 

Voldemort half-turned. "Harry. Good," he added, nodding toward the calming draught. "I charmed you unconscious, as I couldn’t work on the potion _and_ quell your panic all afternoon. How are you feeling?" 

"I don't know. Alright, I think.” What he mostly felt was ‘nothingness,’ but that wasn’t a coherent answer. Was it? "Whatever you did was really bloody strong though." 

"Yes, it was. Go shower before dinner." Harry did so. 

And then what? The steam of the shower had lifted the remnant mental fog, but he still felt strangely impassive toward the prospect of finishing this and going home. And about everything else, really. When they had sat down to eat, Harry asked, "Do you have a newspaper around?" 

"Yes. You can look at them after dinner. But whatever you have in mind – it isn't right." Voldemort held his gaze, to impress this upon him apparently. "Nobody you know has been killed. Certainly nobody you _love_." (Voldemort, by virtue of being himself perhaps, couldn't say the word without a slight sneer.) 

"Really? But _how_ , so many of them stayed to fight." 

"Oh, they did. But it's a battle of strategy and politics now. You’ll see. I’ll only need the political figures, and they’re generally more useful alive than dead.” He rose from the table. "Do you want a glass of wine?" 

God, he felt so much better. "Yeah, please." 

So that's how they spent the rest of the night. Voldemort brought a stack of newspapers to the kitchen table after Harry had cleared it. Sometimes talking and sometimes not, Voldemort stayed with him, handing him articles as Harry mulled over the conflicts he’d missed. 

Casualties were lower than he'd anticipated, which was excellent. And when he didn't recognize any of the names of those killed – not to discount their death, but – deep relief warmed him from the inside. But even so: "Couldn't you stop this?" he finally asked Voldemort. “We could do it together. You go tell your people to stop fighting, I'll tell _my_ people to stop fighting." 

This suggestion got an honest-to-God grin from Voldemort. "That is the most precious battle plan. Could you really see it working?" 

"Yes," Harry said stubbornly. 

"Conflicts need to run their course. This one is drawing to a close. Just stay out of the way." He began re-folding the newspapers. "The potion needs some last touches, then it's time for bed." Harry nodded and Voldemort left. 

He finished clearing the newspapers off the kitchen table. It could work, he was so certain. He and Voldemort could _collaborate_ ; this past week had already proved it. And if that wasn't peace, what was? (He did let himself consider the skepticism and panic and chaos it would cause, if he insisted that he would work with Voldemort. But.) 

When he entered the living room, Voldemort had just shaken some silver powder atop the potion and was waiting for it to melt. "I'll be just a moment, go get ready for bed," he said, picking through his instruments to find a delicate golden whisk. So he went upstairs to brush his teeth. And he would've had a piss then too, he kind of needed one, but then Voldemort walked in at that moment and Harry became suddenly shy. 

"You're sleeping down the hall tonight," Voldemort told him. 

"What? Why?" 

"Because that's where I want you. Do you need to be changed?" Harry only shook his head, so Voldemort ushered him out. 

Down the hall was a spacious master bedroom, with French doors opening up to a balcony. With the door propped opened, the sound and scent of the rain filled the space. 

Harry took a seat on the bed, looking out. "It’s not fair,” he said, "that you're going to let this battle go on, when you could stop it if you wanted. After all, you started it." 

"I did not," Voldemort snorted. "The dissatisfaction with living either in collusion with or in fear of the Muggle world started it. I know you have a savior complex, but this isn't a problem meant to be solved by individuals. Not even us. Let it go." He dimmed a few of the lamps, throwing the room into uneven shadows. 

"We could do so much good though, if we, I don't know, presented a unified front. Head an effort at reconciliation." 

Voldemort let out a short laugh at that. " _I’m_ _not on your side_ ,” he enunciated. “Although I'm flattered." He entered the en suite toilet, letting the door swing closed. 

Bastard. Although yes, sometime over the past week he'd stopped thinking of Voldemort in maniacal murderous psychopath terms. But hadn't the relative peace they’d kept between them proven that, that collaboration wasn't beyond them? 

While he was ready to argue his case more spiritedly when Voldemort emerged from the toilet, Voldemort caught him extremely off-guard by pulling out his wand, shooting out the golden chains that held his wrists firmly to the headboard. "I'll consider it, really," he said casually, as though he hadn’t just chained Harry up. "But jointly bringing any proposal to the Ministry could very well get us imprisoned or killed. Or _would_ ," he added a bit wryly, “if the Ministry and Minister were functional at the moment.” 

Now that Harry was bound, he wasn't much in the mood for this conversation anymore. "Why?" he asked, lifting his wrists in indication (the quarter-inch they'd go). 

Voldemort shrugged. "To keep you there." He unbuttoned his robe, revealing loose silk trousers, suitable for bed. And he did get in on the other side of Harry, munificently tossing a blanket over him since obviously Harry could no longer do it for himself. 

But then the remnants of the day's panic attacks welled up again, in this distinctly claustrophobic and helpless position. He took a deep breath, attempting to will it away. "Please let me up," he said in a measured voice. 

"No, you're fine like that. Go to sleep." Voldemort turned off all the lights but a single dimmed bulb on the nightstand. 

His claustrophobia was compounded by a feeling of the darkness itself pressing down on him. "No, I – bloody hell, let me _go_." His voice shot high and quivered, embarrassingly. 

Voldemort re-lit a lamp, and studied him, and didn't immediately let him go, goddamn him. He looked to the bedside clock: a quarter of midnight. "Here." He pulled on the chains, and they slackened considerably. "By the time another calming draught were to finish brewing, this feeling would have subsided anyway. Can you wait?" 

"Don't turn the lights out," Harry requested, and Voldemort nodded. They sat without speaking, Voldemort absently rubbing circles across the back of Harry's hands, as the thunderstorm moved over them. And then slowly Harry's panic abated, making things seem okay again. Even if the weight of the chains on his wrists was terribly reminiscent of his self-imposed humiliation yesterday. 

 _Oh_. 

Voldemort let go of his hands and the chains retracted slightly. "You're still dry?" He pushed the blanket down to Harry's knees. 

"Yeah." 

"Good, you’ll remain so." He grabbed the top of the plastic pants, tugging them down and off Harry's legs. "You will not piss in my bed." 

Well, this had escalated into something new very quickly. Harry looked down at the unprotected cloth nappy. "But – " 

"If you wet the bed, you get a bare-arsed spanking and then I'd deliver your sodden self  to your friends directly." Voldemort turned out the lights, pulling the blankets over them both. As a finishing touch he shortened the chains again, so that Harry could only reach about his chest and certainly not his cock. "Consider it to be practice at being an adult again." 

"Fuck you, I am an adult." But the words just didn't have the same force when spoken into the uncertain darkness. 

His considerable need to piss had intensified disproportionately in the past five minutes. He slumped back into his pillow and tried not to think about it. But he wasn't tired enough to sleep, he was still rather wound up from the day's excitements, and the patter of the rain just didn't help. He turned over on his side as far as he was able without the chains' obstruction. 

He must have dozed off sometime though, waking up a few hours later. Voldemort's breathing was soft and steady beside him, and the rain had slowed to a drizzle. Unlike Harry, who was fit to burst. He crossed his legs tightly. 

He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d used the toilet that day. Certainly not recently enough. Dammit. The familiar pressure on his bladder, and the added weight of helplessness, intensified his fears. 

There was no way he could go all night dry. He should've had a piss when he had the chance before bed, modesty be damned. As if he _had_ any modesty remaining after the past few days, after essentially conceding his body and its functions to Voldemort. And worse, much worse than the desperation, was when he felt himself beginning to get hard because of it. Not that he could _do_ about it though, not chained as he was, and he tried willing away his arousal instead. 

That never quite works, of course. But he continued to fidget, crossing his legs over one another and squeezing his thighs together as tightly as he could. It didn't seem remotely close to morning yet. 

Apparently his fidgeting finally grew loud and obnoxious enough to wake Voldemort, who dropped a heavy hand on his chest. "Stop. Go back to sleep, you can make it through the night." 

"I _can't_ ," Harry insisted, in something of a whine embarrassingly. "It's been so long since I've pissed, this isn't fair." 

Voldemort's hand slid farther down, until it was atop his rock-hard bladder. "And what would you  like me to do? Tell you to just go, ruin the sheets and get piss all over us both? You'll have to wait. And – " he slid his hand farther down " – keep your knees apart. Don't be childish." 

He forced his hand between Harry's legs and he reluctantly uncrossed them. But when his knees were pushed apart, a new surge of desperation struck him and he clamped down hard on his bladder. " _God_ ," he muttered softly. 

"That's right. Go to sleep. It's, mm, just after two." 

Just after two, there was no bloody way. When Voldemort removed his hand from between Harry's knees, the way they snapped together again was honestly involuntary. "Harry, no." His legs quivered with the effort of keeping his thighs apart. 

He just wouldn't sleep tonight then; instead he would be consumed by the tingling tension that had overtaken his lower half in his desperate effort not to piss himself. But in only perhaps another half hour of agony, he felt the first certain spurt into the nappy. A fraction of a second, but things would escalate quickly after that. 

He did have the slightest bit of a reprieve with the nappy. Without plastic pants, it would definitely leak after a moderate amount of urine had soaked through, much less the buckets that Harry had to go. But it still kept the bed dry from the first spurt. And – _fucking hell_ – from the second as well, a minute later. Harry squeezed his eyes shut tightly, willing this not to happen. Or at least willing that his erection, piqued by the hot moisture clinging to him, would impede his accident. Or something. 

His sense of time was hazy, but he did do a good job of staying dry for maybe another quarter of an hour. Then another leak, inevitably. And a longer one this time, that dripped down his swollen balls. He felt himself slipping, and it was humiliating and exhilarating. 

Voldemort was maybe and maybe not sleeping, he couldn't tell. He tried anyway, saying softly into the darkness, "Voldemort?" Then more insistently, " _Voldemort_." 

"Harry, shut _up_." 

Rude, completely rude. But he said, desperation obvious in his voice, "I'm leaking." 

Voldemort slipped a hand underneath him to check. "The bedclothes are still dry." 

"Can I – " fuck, he hated everything about this situation " – can I go a bit, before the nappy leaks?" 

"And how would you know when that was?" 

He squeezed his eyes shut. "Could you say when?" The next stream of urine would've come whether he wanted it to or not, and he choked back a gasp. He was trying really hard to control himself, to wet himself only a measured amount, but he still pissed hard for a second or two longer than he wanted. 

"Stop," Voldemort told him. He couldn't, honestly. " _Stop_." Finally he clamped down on his bladder, still feeling more desperate than relieved. Voldemort told him, "If you piss anymore you _will_ get the sheets wet. Now you’ve got to wait until morning." Harry only nodded mutely. He knew what he'd resigned himself to. 

When the panic subsided, he did feel marginally better, enough to doze off for awhile. But the next time he awoke, he knew he just wasn't going to make it; he already felt the flood poised in his urethra, threatening a disaster, and Voldemort wasn't even around. 

He listened closely: a few scuffs and clicks of metal objects downstairs. Apparently the potion had needed a touch-up in the middle of the night. Maybe when he came back, then, he'd let Harry up and end this ludicrous hold-it game. He crossed his legs very, very tightly and forced himself to think of anything else.

He heard Voldemort set the potion to a simmer before climbing the stairs again. He slowed his stride when he entered, clearly not expecting Harry to be awake. "It's four in the morning; go to sleep." 

"Let me up. Please." His thighs were shaking with the effort of pressing them together, his need to piss at the very edge of losing it completely. "I can't make it until morning. And I don't want to wet the bed." 

As Voldemort crossed the room, he lit the sconce above the bed with a soft glow. "You won't." 

Harry gasped as the first hot stream of urine hit his clammy nappy. "I _am_." He thrashed desperately at the chains holding him tight, and they refused to give in even a little bit. Piss continued to soaking the nappy, and then, he could feel, the sheet underneath him. " _Fuck_ ," he said softly. 

Voldemort folded the blankets down, so they could both watch the stain spreading rapidly under Harry and his saturated nappy, across the cream-colored sheet. Puddles glistened on the saturated fabric for long moments before getting absorbed, and tiny streams trickled over Harry’s taut thighs. The wetness reached all the way to his knees before he could stop. "Sorry," he said shakily. 

Voldemort shook his head. "You may as well finish. Since you wanted to wet the bed, then you should wet the bed.” 

"I didn't _want_ to," he insisted (not even sure if that was true or not). And then it was harder to go with permission, and Voldemort looking steadily at him, than the accident had been. _In for a penny, in for a pound._ He closed his eyes, pushing the rest of his urine out in a hard stream. 

He pissed for approximately forever, and ended up soaked, humiliated, and terribly aroused. The stream tapered when his hard-on became too inconvenient, and he shuddered in disgust and satisfaction. 

Voldemort merely tapped the chains and they fell off of their own accord. "I told you that if you wet the bed, you'd get a spanking." 

Oh god, not now, he was so hard. "Um. Can I get cleaned up first?" 

"No. Come here." Voldemort sat at the foot of the bed, where it was still dry, and pulled Harry over. He vanished the swollen, sodden, useless nappy and Harry's cock sprang free, red and hard. Undeniable. 

Voldemort didn't even comment – Harry would've felt marginally better if he'd said something deprecating – but pulled him over his lap. "How many?" he asked. 

"I don't know," Harry muttered into the blanket. He needed to get this over with, and get off, and those might be the same thing. 

"Until I'm satisfied, then." And he smacked Harry's arse firmly, then a second time, and a third. It was a better pain than what he had endured that night, a complementary one. The wetness of Harry’s arse made the blows sting more, and his breath hitched. 

Perversely, the sting of the spanking was hitting his pleasure-pain trigger, already so agitated from the holding game all night. He really, _really_ didn't want to get harder while his cock was pressed firmly into Voldemort's thigh, but inevitably, thinking about not thinking about it, his cock thickened with the spanking. 

He had just been too tense and wound tightly for too long, desperate for every sort of relief. He tried squirming off Voldemort's lap, unsuccessfully. "Stop,” Voldemort said in irritation, with a _smack_ that made him cry out.

God, he was so close, a feeling reminiscent yet so much different than the previous desperation. "Stop, I'm going to come," he finally gasped, his voice dropping in embarrassment. 

Voldemort did pause, briefly. "Pardon?" 

"I'm going to come.” He choked on the words but couldn’t _not_ warn him. “On your lap if you don't let me up." 

Voldemort laughed shortly at the candid statement, and somehow this humiliation pushed him nearly over the edge. And then it only took a couple teasing strokes of Voldemort's hand before Harry, with a gasp, thrust his hips into the touch, and had a wracking orgasm into his palm.

Voldemort held him as he thrashed, pumping him through the exquisite rush. And when he had stilled, he pushed Harry off his lap, performed a few serious cleaning spells for Harry and the soaking bed (his wand in his clean hand, of course), and tossed the blankets back over him. "Enough. Goodnight." He dimmed the lights again and walked out. 

Well, that was abrupt, but Harry, in a post-orgasmic and post- _everything_ haze, didn't especially care. He slumped into his pillow, exhausted and overwhelmed. 

Yet, when he heard Voldemort back at his potion downstairs, he realized what he had done. All week, they had been working with blood magic. But this, with his fucking effluvia all over Voldemort's hand, was _sex magic_. Shit. Whatever Voldemort had said about passion creating stronger magic a few days ago… well, that was Harry in spades tonight. Ugh. He shuddered the realization, feeling dirty and manipulated. He pulled the covers up to his chin. 

But then one small instance redeemed things. When Voldemort re-entered the bedroom later, he must have presumed Harry asleep. And he nearly was, but still awake enough to listen to him come in. Voldemort settled on the other side of the bed, rearranged the blankets, and then lightly brushed his lips across the back of Harry's neck. 

"Can you do that again?" Harry murmured into the darkness. 

There was a careful pause behind him. "Do what again?" 

"Kiss me." He rolled over so they were facing one another. Voldemort's eyes gleamed oddly in the darkness. 

"No." 

"What does it matter,” Harry said, a bit bitterly. “I won't remember in a few hours anyway, when you've taken my memories.” 

Voldemort considered this, pulled him closer, and kissed his lips firmly. "There," he said, his mouth still on Harry's, so he felt it more than he heard it. "Enough for the night." And he pulled the blankets over them both. 

 

The next morning had a strange cadence to it. Rather than waking up in his own bed to the sound of Voldemort tending the potion downstairs, Harry awoke in Voldemort's bed with Voldemort right beside him. Getting up as quietly as he could, Harry went down the hall to the toilet. 

Almost home. Wherever that was. As he used the toilet and brushed his teeth, he considered his plan of action. Maybe he could get in touch with Remus or Tonks or Moody. The Order might put his information to better use than the Ministry, particularly in its current state. 

Oh. Not that he would remember any of this, after the memory charm. So he would wander into Diagon Alley, under the impression that it was still sometime last week when the conflict had still been centered at Hogwarts, the students still backing Aurors. Now…now he was probably better off just staying away from the Ministry. If it weren’t in shambles yet anyway. 

He wandered into his bedroom, where his clothes lay crisply clean across the bed’s footboard, and began to dress. He would avoid the Ministry then, get in contact with his friends, and then… hide? The thought didn't sit well with him at all; he'd always been part of the action and, like it or not, had always been a piece in the Wizarding world's politics. Maybe, as Voldemort had said, the conflict needed to run its course. But how could it, without anyone championing a resolution? 

This thought process was interrupted, however, when Voldemort abruptly pushed open the door. "There you are. Are you ready?" His countenance was so neutral that Harry didn't quite know how to react. But he nodded, buttoning the top button of his robe. 

They descended the stairs to the living room, where Voldemort paused before the front door. "Wards," he said, mostly to himself. With his long fingers, he felt around the edge of the doorframe until he found what he was looking for. With a tug, probably thirty strings of light became visible, crisscrossing the door in a complex pattern. "Crossing those would kill you," he said with no trace of sarcasm. Even from where he stood, Harry felt a painful, residual glow coming off them. With a wave of Voldemort’s wand, they faded, and Voldemort led Harry onto the porch. 

The rain was still pounding down hard, making small lakes in the garden beyond the covered porch. "Can I have my wand back?" Harry asked. 

"I'll return it, yes." From behind, Voldemort wrapped an arm across Harry's chest. Not to be adorable (as Harry incredulously wondered), but with a terse explanation: "Stand very still. We're Apparating." 

And so they did. Harry shut his eyes tightly, but in vain, to minimize the squeezing vertigo of Apparation. He opened them again only when he felt his shoes hit the solid cobblestones of Diagon Alley. 

But something had gone wrong. The sky was smoky, and panicked shouts reverberated off the alley’s walls; and a split-second after they arrived, a cacophonous alarm sounded. An anti-Apparation measure; he heard more people shout and run in their direction. 

The scene unfolded in a split second. Voldemort pushed Harry away from himself roughly, causing him to stumble backwards. With one hand Voldemort pulled Harry's wand from a pocket, throwing it on the stones at his feet; with the other he used his own wand to throw a potent white spell at Harry – the memory charm. But in the chaos, and with a group of Aurors rounding the corner upon Voldemort at that moment, the spell missed, instead bursting open a pipe behind them. 

This was wrong, this wasn't what Harry wanted at all. He scarcely considered it. As the lead Auror shouted something, and as Voldemort raised his wand to Apparate, in a single motion Harry scooped up his wand from the street and flung himself at Voldemort. The Auror's Killing Curse missed them by only a hair as they Apparated. 

Harry's forward momentum in grabbing Voldemort around the waist, interestingly, carried through the transportation of Apparation, and they ended up slammed into the exterior wall on the porch of Voldemort's home. Harry, shaking hard, couldn't find it in himself to let go of Voldemort just yet, so he held onto his torso tightly, gasping for breath. 

Voldemort, a great deal calmer, set to prying Harry's fingers out of his sides. "We both could have been Splinched," he rebuked him mildly. 

"I know, I’m sorry," Harry mumbled into his chest. Voldemort took Harry's wand from his clenched fist, slipping it in a pocket of his robe. Finally Harry straightened up; Voldemort was looking at him expectantly. "I didn't want to go back," he attempted to explain. "Not to that, at least. I’d rather stay here. Can I?" 

Voldemort considered. "Why?” he asked. “Are you not adamant that the wizarding world needs your salvific presence anymore?" 

"It does. But I'm most useful here, not out there." 

Voldemort rolled his eyes at this (as Harry expected him to). Nevertheless, he unlocked the front door. "You may stay."

So that was it. Harry followed him inside.


End file.
